Manna Energy Limited Registers World’s First United Nations
Clean Water Carbon Credit Program
First to Earn United Nations Certified Emission Reductions for Water Purification
(Kigali, Rwanda 20 June 2011) Manna Energy Limited, an international leader in combining carbon finance markets with developing communities, today announced the registration of the world’s first United Nations Clean Development Mechanism carbon program for water treatment. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) validated and registered Manna’s Rwanda Natural Energy Project, enabling the deployment of community scale water treatment systems for thousands of the country’s rural residents.
Manna Energy Ltd. has installed solar-powered surface water treatment systems in rural communities, serving schools, hospitals and the public. Local residents now have a close-at-hand source of reliable, clean water, which will improve health outcomes and school attendance. The systems avoid burning non-renewable firewood to boil water, qualifying the Rwanda project for issuance of carbon credits. While the project treats all the water consumed in the service region, the carbon credits generated are tied to actual wood fuel use reduction by the fraction of residents that currently boil some of their drinking water.
The Millennium Development Goals Carbon Facility at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provided technical assistance to Manna for the Rwanda Natural Energy Project since early in its inception. “The Manna projects in Rwanda demonstrate that carbon finance has the potential to achieve a double dividend. It can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deliver basic social services like clean water to the developing communities most in need. That underlines the win-win connections between tackling climate change and reaching the Millennium Development Goals,” said Olav Kjorven, the Director of UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy.
The Swedish Energy Agency(SEA) has committed to the purchase of Manna’s carbon credits for this project, helping Sweden comply with its international emission reduction commitments and national emission reduction targets. SEA also provided critical technical and investment assistance for the project. Andreas Carlgren, Swedish Minister for the Environment, commented on the project, "Using solar power to replace unsustainable use of biomass or fossil fuels is beneficial for the climate and contributes to sustainable development. I strongly support these types of projects within the CDM, as well as its contribution to a broader geographical distribution of CDM projects."
A generous grant from Global Water Challenge during the initial phase of the project helped Manna employ Rwandan engineers and technicians, working in several communities across Rwanda.
“A core component of Manna’s commitment to Rwanda is ensuring the economic sustainability of the project by its continued use and performance,” says Manna Executive Vice President Evan Thomas. “Revenue generated by the carbon credits will be reinvested in the project, helping make it sustainable for at least a decade, providing time to build local capacity and further community adoption.”
Public Health Innovation
Manna also recently broke new ground as the developer of the first Gold Standard voluntary carbon credit water treatment program.
Working on behalf of Swiss based Vestergaard-Frandsen, Manna collaborated on all elements of project development, including stakeholder consultations, baseline determination, and carbon financing documentation, validation, and distribution. Manna also developed and deployed a suite of reporting and monitoring tools to facilitate, manage and ensure the efficient distribution of nearly 900,000 LifeStraw® Family water filters by 4,000 field workers to 4,000,000 residents in Kenya’s Western Province. This is one of the largest privately financed water treatment programs to date.
These projects are remarkable for their contribution to sustainable development, positively impacting nearly all of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and in particular education, health, environmental conservation and poverty reduction.
U.S. Contacts:
Evan Thomas, Ph.D., P.E.
Executive Vice President
Manna Energy Limited
+1 303 550 4671
evan.thomas@mannaenergy.com
Elyse David
Communications Director
Manna Energy Limited
+1 917 284 8019
elyse.david@mannaenergy.com
