NGOs advised to pursue renewable energy to generate funds

Damian Hinkson, Baird’s Village Aquaponic Association displaying the latest addition of a chicken coop at the farm to the SGP project team, NSC members and the media.

Original article by Shamar Blunt, Barbados Today

Civil society organisations should invest heavily in renewable energy projects as a means of securing sustainable financing to carry out their social and philanthropic work.

Dr David Bynoe, National Coordinator of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP) which is implemented by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), offered that suggestion as he and his team toured three GEF facilities on Friday.

An aerial view of the photovoltaic system at Verdun House (Substance Abuse Foundation).

One of those facilities is a project at the Substance Abuse Foundation’s (SAF) Verdun House site in St John, which has so far seen 502 solar panels installed.

Bynoe said the project can be replicated in other parts of the island to reduce the dependency some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and charitable organisations have on public and private sector donations.

“These services come at a cost, and in this day and age we can’t depend on the private sector nor Government to support and sustain these institutions, so they have to look for other sources of revenue. Therefore, solar energy really offers a big opportunity for sustainable financing,” he said.

He said GEF had mobilised more than $500 000 to outfit most of the buildings with photovoltaic cells, “not only using renewable energy to generate energy but make money”.

“They are now generating over $100 000 a year in revenue from having those solar systems.

That is revenue that they can put into their programming, and if they scale that up, which they plan on doing – I think they are going to a one or two-acre site that they have earmarked –… you can see how quickly renewable energy can be a sustainable financing mechanism for social entrepreneurship and social initiatives that really benefit the entire society,” Bynoe added.

He also praised the Government’s push to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030, and encouraged organisations to become fully invested in the move.

The GEF Small Grants Programme coordinator said it was important for the private sector and civil society to cooperate on every level to achieve the goal.

“That’s important because civil society has to have a sustainable financing mechanism, and I can think about no other better mechanism than utilising renewable energy,” Bynoe said.

“I am encouraging any person thinking about large-scale renewable energy projects, remember that a key partner that you can incorporate within that project would be civil society.”

Meantime, one of the other projects visited was Baird’s Village Aquaponics Association which was completely retrofitted with renewable energy support at its core.

The project was started by Damian Hinkson who experimented in aquaponics for two decades to produce organic produce and fish for local consumption.

Stressing that any sustainable agriculture project must have scalability to make gains financially and in climate mitigation, Bynoe said: “SGP is all about making an impact that, cumulatively, can have a global impact. So, if you really want to do that you have to look at scalability – how can you scale it to have an impact – and you also have to look at the sustainability of it.

“We looked at how we can create an agroecosystem that can be closed and having everything available on-farm. So you do not have to import fertilisers, you don’t have to import pesticides, weedicides, fish feed –everything can be found there on-farm,” Bynoe added.

Another important aspect of such projects is the ability to introduce new elements to improve the sustainability of the cycle, he noted. In the case of Baird’s Village Aquaponics Association, it was the introduction of chickens.

“The chickens basically feed on any scraps from the plants that are left over from the market.

They also feed on some of the fish that may be on the farm, and they produce eggs. Those eggs are not only used for sale but they are also used for the manufacturing of fish feed for the farm. Some of the fish for the farm eat things like golden apples, fruits that are found in an abundance here in Barbados so that we don’t have to look outside for feed,” Bynoe explained.

“This is a holistic system I am talking about creating here, and it’s climate-smart, it’s resilient to drought because the water is harvested and kept in a closed system. It is also climate-smart from the perspective that all of the equipment can be packed up into one area in a very short period of time, so that when you have a hurricane up to Category 3 or 4 you are relatively safe.” (SB)