Innovative Solution

safe drinking water, water filters, carbon financing

financial

In 2011 Vestergaard Frandsen launched a breakthrough initiative called LifeStraw^® Carbon for Water^™ (www.carbonforwater.com).  Between April and May, 880,000 LifeStraw^® Family water filters were donated to 93 percent of households without access to safe municipal water in Kenya’s Western Province. Families now have the means to make their drinking water safe for at least 10 years, and it won’t cost them, government agencies or NGOs anything. 

 Each LifeStraw^® Family water filter delivers at least 18,000 liters of US EPA-quality drinking water, enough to supply a family of 5 with safe drinking water for at least 3 years. Kenyans who received them no longer need to treat water by boiling it using wood fuel, which releases greenhouse gasses.  This behavioral change is expected to produce more than 2 million tons of carbon emission reductions annually.

 Funding for the program launch was provided by Vestergaard Frandsen. The company expects to recoup its initial USD30 million investment with carbon financing. This unique funding model gives companies potential revenue, in the form of carbon credits, for sponsoring programs that reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries. Carbon credits can be sold to buyers wanting to reduce their carbon footprint or improve their environmental stewardship. The revenue generated will largely be reinvested to make the program sustainable for at least 10 years. 

 Vestergaard Frandsen hired and trained over 4,000 community health workers and 4,000  drivers to distribute and educate residents on the proper usage of the water filters.  Longer term, the company will employ hundreds of Kenyans to maintain repair and replacement centers set up throughout Western Province, and to provide community education. 

 The LifeStraw^® Carbon for Water^™ program will be monitored by an accredited independent auditing agency every 6 months. The auditor will verify that the emission reductions are accurate, and carbon credits will only be issued after each verification.  As the supplier of the water filters, VF will earn the credits.  Since the company only gets paid for the performance of the water filters in reducing emissions, it has a strong incentive to invest the revenue it earns back into the program.   

The LifeStraw^® Carbon for Water^™ program was launched in the Western Province of Kenya which is located near the Uganda border.  

Vestergaard Frandsen conceptualized the LifeStraw^® Carbon for Water^™ program.  The program is aligned with the company’s values and its mission:  to create and deploy technologies that improve the health of people in developing countries. 

 Vestergaard Frandsen recognizes the challenges in sustaining such public health programs, especially since end-users are not paying for the products they receive.  Instead, they have traditionally been funded by governments, NGOs or donor groups who have limited resources that must be parceled out to many critical health needs.  The LifeStraw^® Carbon for Water^™ program overcomes such financial constraints through its unique self-funded design. 

 During the campaign’s pre-launch stage, Vestergaard Frandsen worked with ongoing collaborative support from the United Nations Development Programme.  

 In Kenya, the LifeStraw^® Carbon for Water^™ program is being coordinated in partnership with the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation.  On an ongoing basis, the program will be monitored by independent auditors.  Vestergaard Frandsen will also provide ongoing education to community members and provide centers where residents can bring the LifeStraw® Family water filters for repair and replacement. 

Vestergaard Frandsen developed the initial plan for the LifeStraw^® Carbon for Water^™ program in 2010 and received ongoing collaborative support during the development stage from the United Nations Development Programme.  In February 2011, after a rigorous validation process, the program was approved as a voluntary project under the prestigious Gold Standard certification scheme.  

 The program was launched in April and May 2011 when more than 880,000 LifeStraw^® Family water filters were distributed to households without access to safe municipal water in Kenya’s Western Province.  

  Every six months, independent auditors will validate resident usage of the water filters and issue reports on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.  The first report will be issued during the first quarter of 2012.  Vestergaard Frandsen is also setting up 31 repair and replacement centers throughout Western Province. 

 At the time of initial distribution, Vestergaard Frandsen conducted a massive public outreach campaign, using radio and peer-to-peer channels to raise awareness.  The company plans to continue to initiate public outreach and education campaigns to ensure sustained usage of the LifeStraw® Family water filters over the course of the project’s ten-year lifespan.   In September, Vestergaard Frandsen made its first post-launch visit to the Province where every home in Western Province was visited and residents encouraged to use their water filter as often as possible, and report any questions or concerns they had with the product. A survey was done asking about usage rates, which found that more than 90% of people were using their water filters.

Innovative and sustainable solutions to the global water crisis are critically important.  According to 2010 World Health Organization data, almost 1 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water. Diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of death in children under five years old, and is responsible for killing 1.5 million children every year.  Children who are malnourished or have impaired immunity are most at risk of life-threatening diarrhea.

 Point-of-source solutions to provide safe water to people who don’t have ready access to water (e.g., wells and boreholes) are often not completed because of bureaucratic gridlock or they break down due to a lack of maintenance.  Point-of-use solutions, such as LifeStraw^® Family, are widely seen by academic researchers as the most effective intervention to deliver safe drinking water.

 Pneumonia is another huge public health problem.  Every year, pneumonia kills an estimated 1.6 million children under the age of five years, accounting for 18% of all deaths of children under five years old worldwide. Environmental factors, including indoor air pollution caused by cooking and heating with biomass fuels such as wood, increase a child’s susceptibility to pneumonia.

The LifeStraw^® Carbon for Water^™ program is one of the largest water treatment projects ever done without government or public sector funding. It’s also the first that directly links carbon credits with safe drinking water.

 The program holds the potential for long-term sustainability of a point-of-use water purifier program.  It has potential to reduce respiratory disease by reducing particulate matter in the homes, and it promotes environmental sustainability by reducing the use of wood and other fuels for cooking fires and removing tons of carbon from the atmosphere (an estimated two million tons of carbon emission reductions expected annually).

 The program targets four of the eight UN Millennium Development Goals including (4) Reduce child mortality; (5) Improve maternal health; (6) Combat diseases; and (7) Ensure environmental sustainability. 

 LifeStraw^® Carbon for Water^™ is also unique in the way it ties revenue intrinsically to performance—a concept relatively new in the aid and public health contexts. Its self-funding model can overcome challenges in sustaining public health programs funded by governments, NGOs or donor groups with limited resources. 

Monitoring by an accredited independent auditing agency will take place every six months. The auditor will verify that the emission reductions are accurate, and carbon credits will only be issued after each verification.  

Vestergaard Frandsen is planning to initiate the LifeStraw® Carbon for Water^™ program in other appropriate locations and expects to launch it on a much larger scale in Indonesia in 2013.

The overriding risk or challenge with the LifeStraw® Carbon for Water™ program is to ensure that residents use the LifeStraw® Family water filters consistently to provide family members with a sufficient amount of safe, clean drinking water to meet their health needs. If this goal is not met, health impact is diminished and the program does not receive as much financial remuneration to keep it self-sustaining over the longest period of time. 

 To mitigate against this potential risk in Kenya, Vestergaard Frandsen has planned for ongoing community education to remind residents about the importance of continually using the water filters for optimal water consumption.  Vestergaard Frandsen is also maintaining 31 repair and replacement centers that will be set up throughout Western Province to replace the water filters when necessary.  These initiatives will be vital to the ongoing success of the program.

Since the LifeStraw® Carbon for Water™ program is so new it has not yet attracted commitments from donors or governments to replicate it. However, strong support for the program was voiced by these stakeholders when the program was presented during the Durban Climate Change conference in early December.

Peter Cleary

Communications Director

Vestergaard Frandsen

pc@vestergaard-frandsen.com