As we have seen in the previous two parts of this copy, social franchising can considerably contribute to reducing poverty by providing employment to vast amounts people and spreading socioeconomic awareness. Thus, if you want to make a huge positive impact upon the society, opening a social enterprise would be a good idea and starting a social franchise or becoming a franchisee of an already existing one might be even better and more importantly, much easier to implement. The following paragraphs will give you an opportunity to meet some of our favourite companies which have already embarked on the journey. If you find one you really like, you could perhaps ask them for feedback on your big idea to change the world, or you might even find one which you can strongly relate to and contact them about a franchise opportunity with them or perhaps even for volunteering and helping their cause in that way. We are certain that any social enterprise would be excited to get a helping hand, as that would enable them to help even more people, which is the main goal majority of them have. The information on opportunities and examples of social franchises we will provide, will differ on case by case basis, as the amount of information we could access on each one of them differs significantly. Despite that, we hope you will find the information you are looking for or at least interesting.

First of all, we would like to mention The Trussell Trust, which is a company with the aim of eliminating hunger from the United Kingdom (UK). As we all know, UK is one of the most affluent countries in the world, however, data shows that nearly thirteen million hungry people live there and the number is increasing each day due to several reasons, spanning from unexpected expenses which need to be urgently handled to delays of receiving benefits. If the data for UK is so striking, you can only imagine, how high the numbers are in less affluent countries, especially in the developing ones. The Trussell Trusts’ network of 400 food bank franchisees, has decided to tackle this big issue by providing people in need with a minimum of three-day emergency food support packages. In this way, their support has reached over 1.000.000 house British households in 2015 and the beginning of 2016. If you decide to become their franchisee, they will provide you with full training and operating manual, ongoing support, a content management system template for your future franchisee website, branding artwork, national and regional conferences, etc. Your initial contribution to become their franchisee will sum up to 1500 pounds the first year and 360 each consecutive, which doesn’t seem overly high for a noble cause they are after. If you wish to help them with eliminating hunger in UK, visit their webpage and get in contact with them, but even more importantly, if you wish to spread their amazing cause abroad, you should probably get in contact with them as well, as we are certain they would be delighted in helping you on your journey with their valuable experience. You can find more information on The Trussell Trust on their webpage https://www.trusselltrust.org/ .

The second company we want to introduce is “Care And Share Associates” abbreviated to CASA, which is another company operating in the UK. Their three core values are “people before profit”, “actions speak louder than words” and “commitment to local communities”. What the company actually does is overseeing a large group of adult social care providers, by empowering them through giving them an opportunity of owning their own company and enabling them to bring high quality care and support to people who really need it. The things CASA will help you with when building your social franchise are writing a business plan, registration at the “Care Quality Commission”, “Criminal Record Bureau” checks, securing the funding to start the company, marketing and contracting, and much more. Just as importantly, they offer you an inclusion in their franchise network, which is famous for the mutual support of the members, as well as cross-fertilization of members’ knowledge on improving the world. If you want to know more about CASA and how to help the elderly in your community, we encourage you to contact them, but first visit their website, where you’ll be able to learn more about the company and its cause. You can reach them on the following webpage http://www.casaltd.com/ .

The third social franchise whose cause in a way relates to the one of “The Trussell Trust” and again operates in the UK is the “FoodCycle” company, which exists since 2008, meaning they have been helping people for quite some time. If you read the second part of our article, you know that this track record is quite important, especially if you are interested in becoming their franchisee. What “FoodCycle” does is help people who are at risk of hunger and social exclusion, by organising weekly communal meals, which enable those people to socialize and fill up their tummies in a warm appealing environment. For the past few years, they have been especially focused on developing and refining their franchise model in order to make it even better and help even more people help other people. They do this through several initiatives among which is support in securing the funding for your franchise. It is also worth to note that “FoodCycle” is the largest franchise group of that type in UK, meaning they probably possess vast amounts of knowledge and could give you a lot of information on working with them, success of their previous franchisees as well as information about requirements to open some other type of social franchise by yourself. You can find more information about “FoodCycle” franchise on http://foodcycle.org.uk/ .

As you can see, it would be too lengthy to go further and present more remarkable companies within a single article. Because of that we are going to refer you to a few more social franchises by listing the links to their websites. You can find “Child and Family Wellness Clinics” on http://www.cfwshops.org/ , PSI which is a global organisation devoted to improving health of people in the developing world at http://www.psi.org/ and the franchise format called “Basic Needs, Basic Rights”, which is devoted to improving international mental health, can be found on http://www.basicneeds.org/ . If you wish to explore other social franchising opportunities around the world, we suggest that you visit the “European Social Franchising Network’s” member directory through http://www.socialfranchising.coop/members-directory . Either way, we sincerely hope you are going to find a social franchise you like and perhaps start changing the world for the better by cooperating with or supporting at least one of them.

We encourage you to share this article among your social network and perhaps some of your friends will jump on the train of changing the world for the better as well. We wish you all a beautiful and cheerful day.

According to Mr. Berelowitz, the chief executive officer and the co-founder of International Center for Social Franchising (ICSF) in London, one of the important characteristics of social franchising is its’ adoption of successful practices originating in commercial franchising. Namely, the key to a successful franchise is always recording and specifying key operating processes of a business and then transferring them onto other entrepreneurs, which can then follow your established routine and succeed in running a business of their own, by using the company’s name and the know-how. In exchange, the franchisee then pays royalty fees, marketing fees and other pre-agreed upon expenses. However, social franchises define success differently than their commercial sister. Namely, rather than putting emphasis on the retained earnings or profits, they focus on the extent of positive impact their economic activity leaves on the society. Regardless, it also needs to be noted, that even social enterprises need capital in order to survive and sustain the ability to deliver the target social impact. Thus, financial resources which are at disposal must be scrutinized at all times.

Social franchise can be financed from several sources, spanning from different governmental or European initiatives, to personal finance, contributions from family and friends, or as our “entrepreneurial business models” professor always said, the triple FFF, where his third F stands for fools. Sometimes financing can be also gained through crowdfunding or more traditional ways like bank loans. According to Berelowitz, financing can be extremely important, which is especially true when the company wants to expand the capacity of its’ operation or when the franchisor needs to train many new franchisee’s, or when franchisees need to employ staff. In Berlowitz’s words, it’s sometimes even necessary that social franchises switch their business model to full business format franchising, in order to remain capable of delivering high quality and quantity of service even more rapidly. In such situations, it needs to be kept in mind that the franchise still exists with a social cause, so we can remain including it under the umbrella term social enterprise, despite a slightly higher focus on monetization.

Furthermore, Berelowitz speaks about the necessary preconditions or things to keep in mind when thinking about boarding a social franchise train, whichever side of it you are boarding. The initial and most important point is that a potential franchisee as well as franchisors pay significant attention to the chosen project, i.e., the potential franchisee needs to make sure that the idea they pursue has a proven track record in social impact as well as financial sustainability, whereas the franchisors must pay more attention to forecasting and thinking about the things that could go wrong, the knowledge they must urgently transfer to their franchisees, which knowledge should be only kept by the franchisor, etc. Furthermore, it is important that potential social franchisors pay significant attention to who they choose as franchisees. Sadly, franchisors have to sometimes also find a good balance between quality of the service they provide and the quantity they can provide at the specified quality. More specifically they need to decide when to sacrifice the quality in order to be able to deliver its’ necessary quantity. Either way, franchising and its’ social counterpart are highly recommended to companies and social enterprises which see a high potential to growth, so if you have an idea that you are certain could change the world for the better and you’re nearly certain it would succeed, you should certainly look into social franchising in more depth.

The following and the last part of the article will include a few examples of social franchises, so you can perhaps explore them a bit more and see in which way they operate and learn more about their contribution to our society.

(to be continued…)

Let us begin by sharing a few words about franchising in general. Franchising is becoming increasingly important all over the world. One part of information which attests to it is that according to a report produced by “Global Industry Analysts” in 2012, franchises all over the world will soon surpass €3.5 trillion in yearly revenues. Even more importantly, investing in franchises has been shown to contain much less risk and can be much more rewarding than starting a business from scratch, which is why franchising is starting to become increasingly interesting for social entrepreneurs and investors as well. However, since social franchising is just beginning to gain friction, there are still many hurdles and uncertainties in the way. Thus, the aim of this article is to cover some of those and bring social franchising closer to you, our reader and perhaps help you embark on the journey towards opening an “impact” franchise yourself.

Franchising Facts & Figures

First of all, let us look at a few more facts and figures related to franchising, as you will probably agree that the number €3.5 trillion is not very meaningful or informative, as we are normally not used to operating with such big numbers. First, it will make the amount slightly more comprehensive, if we compare it too United States yearly federal budget, which nearly the same (source: Wikipedia), i.e., approaching €3.5 trillion in 2015. Other than that, International Franchise Association has reported that franchise businesses create jobs faster than any other type of business and even all other types of business combined, leading by at least 2% each year since 2007 till 2015. In addition, the nominal output of franchising organisations has been increasing by at least 4% a year as well. The most popular franchising business are within the personal services sector, quick service restaurants, real estate and retail products and services. In addition, restaurant franchise businesses also employ the highest proportion of workers within the industry. Another very interesting piece of information is that according to International Franchise Associations’ research (which is admittedly slightly or even very outdated, as it originates in the year 2000), 86% of franchises which opened in the past 5 years are still operated by the same owner, and 97% of them were still in business. This information is highly significant, especially in comparison to the high drop-off rate when looking at other types of start-ups. According to Forbes report in 2015, 90% of start-ups fail within the first year of operation, meaning that opening a franchise in order to introduce yourself to the entrepreneurial waters is probably a wise choice. 

As you can see, social franchising is yet nowhere to be seen, i.e., social franchises have not gained popularity yet. However, franchising does seem to have a high impact upon the economy, thus we assume that social franchising itself will soon gain reputation as well, one of the reasons for it being the high sensitivity to socially sustainable economic activity by the generation Y, i.e., the millennials, which was reported by Nielsen in the middle of 2011.

(to be continued...)

Inspired by insects of the desert, who get water by harvesting night dew between their legs, and by fog nets in Chili, an Italian designer invented water towers to harvest water from the air.

The first prototypes of Warkawater towers have been built in Ethiopia. Now, there is a crowdfunding campaign launched on crowdfunding platform GoFundMe: http://www.gofundme.com/warkawater. This campaign will also explain you in detail how this miracle works.

Wind power is reported to have generated enough energy to supply 1.9 million homes in Scotland or 35.9% (April 2016). This is great news for those in favour of new ecological and sustainable power supplies. Together with solar power, ecologically generated power is really starting to make a dent on overall supplies, contrary to those who have been sceptical in the past. 

This was also one of those are unusually positive weeks in the climate change area and sometimes those ‘good weeks’ are few and far between. However the Paris deal was signed by the key players in New York and climate change moved to centre stage in the Australian federal election also. The historic agreement on climate change marked a major milestone with a record 175 countries signing on to it on the opening day. But world leaders made clear more action is needed, and quickly, to fight the relentless rise in global temperatures.

Follow, discuss and help keep up the momentum on Finance Eco Money See also https://www.finance-eco-money.org/fempower/crowdfunding/item/empowering-and-financing-solar-powered-desalination 

In order to reduce the use of plastic, made from the old non-sustainable oil, one can use some ecological straws to sip their favorite beverage.

We can find mainly two categories of so-called "ecological straws": reusable or not.

Reusable straws are made from durable materials, such as steel, reed or bamboo. In the package, you will usually find a tapered cleaning brush to keep your pipe neat day after day, and a small bag to transport them in your pocket, assuring that you will always have them when you need, at friends or at a bar.

Non-reusable straws can be made from sugar, pasta, apple, cane, wheat or paper and cardboard.

No problem with reed, apple, cane or bamboo, which are compostable after their end of life. Nature goes back to nature. Here, the same destination is promised to both reusable and single-use natural straws.

Is it worth buying bamboo straws? Won't they  break or disintegrate after a couple of uses?

No, indeed, after trying some bamboo straws, I can confirm that they last long enough.

But what do you think of straws made from stainless steel or aluminium? They require to extract some ore, refine it, shape it, requiring then a certain amount of energy. Maybe not so much for a single straw, though much more than just an item made from a plant, growing by itself and requiring nothing but sun and water.

Same interrogation with straws made from paper. Like steel, this is a highly processed material. Even recycled paper needs loads of water and energy to see another life as a straw in your glass.

And what would we do with these steel or paper straws after use? How will they be recycled (if ever) when you throw them away?

Even though I always tend to prefer durable objects which can have a long life, I am not sure to be very fond of steel, aluminium or cardboard as a material to make straws, finally.

I guess I will stick to my wonderful bamboo straws and keep them in my bag.

Social entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly important all over the world. The main difference between what we generally call an enterprise and a social enterprise is in that the majority of companies measure their success through earned and retained profits, whereas social enterprises measure their success in the quantity of people they have helped and the extent, to which they made this world a better place to live in for all the members of society. Social enterprises usually apply their profits either to their own growth and promotion, or to the promotion and the development of the entire community.

                Some contributions social entrepreneurship makes to society are increasing the solidarity and cohesion, encouraging cooperation between people and volunteering, inspiring people to innovatively solve problems that society faces, etc. Even more importantly, it provides an increasing amount of people with employment, many social enterprises produce food and help people who are hungry, get something on their plates, but it also boosts the economy from the socioeconomic as well as traditional economic perspectives. Social entrepreneurs operate in the fields of family safety, animal protection, environmental sustainability, promotion of health and physical activity, fair trade, social inclusion, sustainable energy sources, etc.  Thus, social entrepreneurship seems to substantially contribute to the positive changes we increasingly see in this world, and since making a social enterprise flourish is very difficult, especially with the difficulty of gaining funding, we should invest some effort into nourishing it and helping the budding social entrepreneurs thrive even more. As a member of the social entrepreneurship community, we will hopefully help our colleagues through creation of this article, which is going to contain some information on how to finance a socially focused business.

                In general, there are many options for funding a social enterprise. Some of the initiatives through which many countries are trying to promote it, are granting loans at favourable rates, grants, subventions and funds, which are specifically focused on this type of business. In addition, social enterprises are also receiving a lot of attention from the European Union, which designed a strategy for promoting social entrepreneurship all the way to the year 2020. One of the reasons it has done so is probably the fact that nearly 20% of Europeans are already walking the path of social exclusion and poverty, which is a very frightening statistic for a part of the world, which is supposed to be among the better developed ones. A few initiatives that the EU has taken on in providing financing options to social enterprises are through the European Social Fund, which is supposed to promote employment and social cohesion in the member states of the European Union, the European Agricultural Fund, which aims to support European farming community and the European microfinance initiative. Besides these institutionalized funding options, there are also quite a few private financing strategies. These include social bank, which is an umbrella term for ethical and alternative banks, the private investors, for example, companies which are already operating in the social entrepreneurship sphere or who wish to expand their operations to incorporate more socially sustainable projects and through philanthropic funding, for example, if you have a really remarkable idea, you could contact people such as Warren Buffer & Bill Gates, who would certainly be excited to help. One of such initiatives supported by Bill Gates and Microsoft, is Salman Khans’ YouTube mathematics lessons, which later developed into Khan Academy. Gates initial investment into the project was $1.5 million, however, he later poured in at least another $7.5 million. This means that if your idea is really good and you can persuade a famous philanthropist to support it, it could enable your help to reach millions of people. For an inspiration, make a note of Khan Academy, which today educates over 10 million people a month.

                Another path of obtaining financing for a social enterprise which should not be forgotten and actually resembles what Gates did with Khan academy, though we have observed that many social enterprises wish to avoid it, is getting funding through donations. Even though we realize that most social enterprises wish to contribute to the society with their hard earned money, we feel that sometimes slightly too much attention is put on that, as what is supposed to matter is helping people, not where you obtained the means to do it. A few simple ways of collecting donations can be through posting a “donate” link button to your webpage, promoting your cause and willingness to accept donations through social media, or through directly contacting companies who you feel care about society, to perhaps help you with your start. If you are sincere, persistent and honest in your efforts, we are certain that success will come your way. You could also try to gain funding through sponsorships or memberships.

                Hopefully, we have provided you with some valuable insight into obtaining funding to help change the world yourself, through your own social enterprise. If you feel there is something we forgot to mention, don’t hesitate to tell us about it within the comments section bellow and if you wish us to write another article on this topic, let us know about that as well, or any other topic you want us to touch upon of course. Enjoy your day and don’t forget to read our other articles as well. If you are into social entrepreneurship, you could perhaps start with the article on social franchising.

Online privacy concerns have been gaining increasing attention over the past decade. Despite the fact that individuals had many privacy concerns even before the world wide web emerged, it seems their worries have substantially increased ever since. Importantly, the hype seems to be justified, as getting our identity stolen over the internet is much more likely and common, than it was in the old times, as there are around 3.5 billion users who prey on you online today, which is quite a substantial number in comparison to the few thousand people who you came across during a lifetime before occurrence of Internet.

                One of the concerns which is present in the minds of most online users is related to the extensive use of cookies, which are utilized by the majority of popular websites in order to track customers’ movement on their page. Even more concerning is the fact that despite the widespread use of cookies, webpages seldom post any privacy-related notices and even less of them have incorporated a formal privacy policy into their website. It is also necessary to stress that the online world has made it increasingly effortless to amass large amounts of user related information, which makes consumers’ frustration even greater.

                Interestingly enough, even though the privacy concerns are discussed a lot in the media, the number of complaints on breaching peoples’ privacy online remains low. A few reasons for this trend might be the privacy policies which companies already have in place, collection of information without analysing them, meaning that the privacy breaches remain hidden and also the consumer related unawareness of the privacy legislation and their rights. Despite the recent proliferation of big data, many companies also don’t know how to utilize the vast amount of information they accumulate, however, with improvement of new web based technologies and increased familiarity with the science behind big data, it is assumed that companies are going to catch up and start using all the data, they have saved on their servers. One of the concerns here is that hackers might access such stored information even before companies figure out how to use them and if hackers go through all the trouble of accessing the information, they probably also know how to use it.

                The greatest issue with all this is not the data collection itself, but companies’ non-transparent ways of going about it, i.e., many websites don’t tell their visitors which data is being collected and how this data is going to be used. On the positive note however, most professional websites are starting to pay more attention to this issue and developing comprehensive privacy policies. One of the initiatives which is contributing to these efforts is the requirement of European Union that all websites contain a pop-up cookie collection statement, which usually also contains a direct link to websites’ privacy policy.

                One of the consequences of online privacy breach can be identity theft. If you want to learn more about it or on how to protect yourself from it, read our “Identity Theft” article and make your presence online more secure. 

Identity theft refers to the situation in which an individual steals your personal information with the intention of committing fraud. Some ways in which this information can be fraudulently applied are through loan applications, tax returns or health related services. Moreover, such actions may ruin your credit rating and even more importantly, they can be costly and time consuming to repair. It follows that keeping your identity secure, especially when you are browsing the web is highly important. Even more importantly, you should educate your children on maintaining online privacy as well, as in the opposite case, identity could be stolen from them and they might enter their adulthood with serious problems to deal with. When identity is stolen from children, the consequences can be even worse than when it is stolen from adults, as it usually takes time for such thefts to be discovered, while children and their parents usually don’t pay to much attention to the child’s credit rating. When the child becomes an adult and starts paying attention, it is often already too late to have any significant impact upon what happened.

According to United States government, there are several distinctive categories of identity theft. Namely, those are child ID theft, which has been described above, tax ID theft, which refers to a situation where the perpetrator gets a hold of victims’ social security number in order to file misleading tax return, medical ID theft, which serves the thief to fraudulently debit your health insure provider, senior ID theft, which is quite self-explanatory and refers to the ID theft from our senior citizens, which are especially vulnerable consumer group in that respect and social ID theft, where the perpetrator accesses and abuses your personal information like pictures, name and other, in order to create a social media account and possibly commit damage to your reputation. It follows that no matter which consumer group you belong to, you’re probably at risk of identity theft. We recommend that you don’t worry about it too much, as it is something which is difficult to influence, however, there are some precautions which you can take, in order to keep your identity as safe as possible.

The United States government gives a few recommendations on preventing identity theft, i.e., on keeping your identity secure. Most of them are quite is to implement and we recommend that you start with those. Now let us list the ways in keeping your identity secure. You should keep your social security number safe at all time. Unless you urgently need it, don’t carry it around with you and only hand it to an authorised person when there is no other possibility. It is important that you never give out your personal information over the telephone or the internet, especially if you don’t know/trust the person/company who is on the other side. For example, if you need to pay for something over the phone, rather ask the person to give you their bank account information so you can transfer the money, than giving them your personal information over the phone, as even a company you trust can sometimes make a mistake and hire a wrong type of person, which might abuse your information. When you are withdrawing cash from ATM, giving out personal information at the bank or discussing your health issues with your nurse, always pay attention to people who might be listening in to your conversation. Don’t leave your mail box unattended for days, if you plan to go on a holiday or business trip, ask the post office to hold your mail. Regularly pay attention to any potential changes in your bank account. With the accessibility of online banking and other services which some banks offer, like SMS notification of all bank transfers and withdrawals, this shouldn’t be too big of a deal. If your bank charges for such services, remember that 1-10€/month (my bank charges 1€, I don’t know about charges of others) is a small charge in comparison to having your bank account emptied. Shred paper with personal information before throwing it into the bin. There is a low likelihood that someone is going to go through the trash in order to get a hold of your personal information, but you can never know. Have your smart devices (computers, telephones, iPads, etc.) secured with complex passwords and change those passwords on a regular basis. Whenever possible, your passwords should include big letters, small letters, alphanumeric characters, etc. The more complex the better. Also secure your network with firewalls and anti-virus software. Usually you can find free versions of high quality software online. We use Avast. Remember, taking at least some of the steps to secure yourself is better than taking none of them!

Sometimes, no matter how many precautions we take, our identity gets stolen anyway and in such cases it is important to deal with it as quickly and efficiently as possible. The first thing you need to do is report the incident to the responsible authorities. You can start with the police and they will advise you where to go next. Once you report the crime, you will get a confirmation, which can help you resolve issues with banks, creditors and other institutions you might have fallen out of favour with. If your identity has been stolen on a long-term basis, you can also report it to human rights watch, if your medical ID has been stolen you should report it to medical care fraud office, if tax identity was stolen you should report it to your national tax office, etc.

Recently, law enforcement agencies have noticed a new trend within the identity theft area, which they refer to as synthetic identity theft. In contrast to predominant identity theft style, where the perpetrator steals all the personal information of a person in order to build a fresh identity, synthetic identity theft refers to an instance, where the thief pinches parts of information from different individuals, in order to create an entirely new persona, e.g., a person might steal the social security number of one person, tax ID from another and medical ID from the third person, in order to unify all of them into a single fictitious individual. Because such a scheme is not related to one single individual, it is much more difficult to identify and even more difficult to prevent. It is important to note that children are especially vulnerable to this type of fraud. The only way to deal with synthetic identity theft is to continuously monitor what is happening with your accounts and identity where it matters. If you discover you’ve been a victim, report the incident immediately.

As you’ve been able to observe, there are many distinctive types of identity theft and unfortunately, they are quite common. Thankfully there are many precautions you can take in order to avoid it. If you are interested in protecting your identity online, you could also look up BitBank, which is a company, which specializes in securing your personal information on the world wide web. If you wish to explore more on the topic, we encourage you to browse through other related articles on our website. Lastly, it needs to be restated that you shouldn’t worry about the issue too much, as it is commonly related to sheer luck. Stay lucky J

I remember when we were in Oxfordshire back in 1989 there was a programme to reintroduce red kites into England and Scotland. http://www.yorkshireredkites.net/index.php/red-kite-info/history-red-kite-reintroduction-programme

Now there is a lecture here in Luxembourg university to explore the controversy between Red Kites and wind power. http://www.chronicle.lu/categorieslivingthings/item/16893-lecture-to-explore-controversy-between-wind-farms-and-rare-red-kites 

We look forward your thoughts and ideas and to following this on https://finance-eco-money.org/discover/ecology-energy  

Today, it has been announced that a new solar-powered invention by the award-winning British company Desolenator can turn seawater into drinking water. While it is believed that the world is rapidly reaching global water crisis level with nearly one billion people lacking access to clean drinking water, it is hoped that this new equipment could lead the way for technological help.

The machine uses patented technology that can transform salt water and other non drinkable water sources into pure, distilled water fit for human consumption. It is capable of producing 15 liters of water per day, using no power supply other than the sun and with no moving parts or filters and is easy to maintain. After the initial purchase the machine needs no extra input of money or consumables and should be able to provide clean water for a household for a period of up to 20 years.

It is estimated that 97 percent of the world’s water is salt water and if we are able to tap into this valuable and available resource we could alleviate the global water crisis in an unprecedented way. Today 0.7 percent of the world’s water comes from desalination and existing technology is expensive, inefficient and dis-proportionally uses perhaps 0.5% of the world’s global energy supply. It is thought that the new invention is different from existing desalination and home water technologies, harnessing solar power in an elegant way, thereby maximizing the use of solar radiation through a combination of thermal, electrical and heat exchange.

The machine is still under development but there is a fully working prototype available http://desolenator.com/  .Interestingly the company has already started an Indiegogo Crowdfunding finance campaign following its success in an accelerator program and has also won a development grant.

If you like this article and want to help empower start-ups with a good socioeconomic cause try: https://www.finance-eco-money.org/fempower/finetech/item/bitwalking-share-the-belief-and-benefits-of-a-new-equal-global-economy-for-all 

Mid-March 2016, Honda announced they will launch a fuel-cell car (powered by hydrogen) by the end of 2016. Despite the price (over 57 600 EUR TTC in Japan, probably even more expensive in Europe), this car represents a hope for green cars.

At the same time, Tesla announced they will open a new show-room in Luxembourg city for their premium electric cars, around end of second semester 2016. From this date, Tesla cars will be available in Luxembourg, while until now they are distributed by the Belgian importer.

Those two good news bring to us a question: which is the most environment-friendly one? Which one should you choose, assuming that you can afford a Tesla (starting at 69 100 EUR TTC)?

First criterion to look at is autonomy: considering the 550 km of autonomy claimed by Tesla (closer to 500 km in reality), the 750 km of autonomy claimed by Honda seem to be a huge advantage. That could be true if we had already a network for hydrogen distribution, which is not the case or the moment. In fact, in France, only 9 hydrogen stations have been already built, forgetting at least 80% of territory. Do not even think of Luxembourg: you have more chances to find palm trees in Norway than being able to refill you car with hydrogen.

On the contrary, Tesla has built all over Europe a network of "superchargers", which can recharge more than 80% of your car in 20 minutes, and fully charge in 30 minutes. Barely time for a coffee or a lunch. Moreover, the use of these superchargers is totally free, the user even doesn't pay for the power!

Second criterion is the environment. How is produced the hydrogen that will power the Honda fuel-cell car?

Hydrogen can be produced mainly by two processes: electrolysis or from hydrocarbons. Electrolysis uses electricity with an efficiency rate of 7 to 10%, which obviously induces a low power rentability compared to the Tesla, which draws its power directly from electricity with an efficiency rate superior to 90%. The use of green power (wind, hydroelectricity, sun, etc.) allows to reduce the impact on environnment but will not increase the overall efficiency rate. Whichever is theprocess of producing electricity, the most efficient is obviously the best.

The second solution to produce hydrogen is from hydrocarbons, which gets a double drawback: not only its efficiency (80%) is still lower than Tesla, but also the pollution (refusal) generated by this form of production. On top of that, using fossil energy is not sustainable on a long-term basis.

As a conclusion, for the moment the electric car wins the fight. At least until hydrogen improves its distribution and the efficiency of its production.

Nevertheless, actually driving green is quite a luxury: 57 600 EUR for Honda + hydrogen loads, 69 100 EUR for Tesla (but free power from superchargers), keep these cars reserved for wealthy people. A first step on the way.

On Thursday 10 March 2016 Citim (Centre for Information on the Third world,55 avenue de la Liberté, L-1931 Luxembourg) launched "Need for Seed" a project to Examine Food Sovereignty, Food Security and cultivated biodiversity.

The event facilitated a free, public, exchange of information on world-wide seed issues, primarily concerning the dangers of genetically modified food and was introduced by Jean Feyder, Ancien Ambassador for Luxembourg at WTO (World Trade Organisation), Geneva and member of the ASTM Board of Directors and author of "La Faim Tue" (Hunger Kills). ASTM stands for Action Solidaire Tiers Monde (Third World Action Solidarity).

Frank Adams, founding member of the Luxembourg SEED network and an expert on cultivated biodiversity & food quality showed slides and lead a group discussion, with several other practisioners from the cultivated biodiversity space, in Luxembourg: Steve Schwartz of Kraizschouschteschgaart and Klouschtergaart, Georges Moes of Natur & ëmwelt, as well as Estrella Catarata, director of the Philippine Network of Food Security Programmes (PNFSP). Madam Catarata is one of ASTM's partners from the Philippines and she informed the group of the current situation regarding small Filipino farmers and their efforts to save seed sovereignty in their country.

The group emphasised the importance of simple and traditional seeds as the basis for the constant struggle on food sovereignty from the north to the south of our planet. Today the standardisation of seeds especially from genetically modified plants endangers our heritage and the precious biodiversity of our food and livelihood.

With the "Need for Seed" project, CITIM, in collaboration with three local players, Network SEED Luxembourg, the private initiative Kraizschouschteschgaart, and Natur & ëmwelt, want to encourage and help us to bring the greatest possible biodiversity to our own gardens and also to help consumers and growers alike to reclaim their self-sufficiency in food production.

MFTSE Affairs S.A., aims to support this new venture and share opinions on FEM.lu

The OECD said in 1999: Any private entity conducted in the public interest, organised with an entrepreneurial strategy but whose main purpose is not the maximisation of profit but attainment of certain economic and social goals, which has the capacity of bringing innovative solutions to the problems of social exclusion and unemployment.

See our Discussion Topics on how such enterprises might be funded and financed.