NNS & Sanjeevani Woodstoves Project
NNS is a small group of dedicated social workers who have undertaken various NABARD and State Government projects touching 207 villages of Almora district, Uttarakhand. We focus on improving the quality of lives of women and protect their natural resources in the Himalayas. Sanjeevani works in partnership with government, corporate and international agencies to implement about 10 small projects every year.
We joined Fair Climate Network in 2013. After several meetings, skill and conceptual training sessions, we undertook a comprehensive demographic and energy usage household survey of 13,246 families we work with in 457 villages. The FCN Tech Team used this information to prepare a PDD and, in a coalition consisting of SUVIDHA, NNS and Sanjeevani, the three of us together registered a Gold Standard Project titled "GS 3791 PRAYAS – a VER project for the rural communities in Uttarakhand".
One of the components of this Climate Project was to supply 2 fuel efficient woodstoves each to 12,000 women who NNS & Sanjeevani work with in Almora district. We held village meetings and made every single End User woman understand that this was a business transaction. By using her Woodstoves, she would cut her fuel wood usage by half and generate Carbon Offsets, with which she will repay the Carbon Investor.
After visiting our villages for a week in May 2017, Ram Esteves, FCN Convenor and Waheed Esteves, FCN Facilitator, promised to mobilize funds to assist 3,000 "Business Women" in Almora district as a pilot project. Click here to see the visit report.
On 11 July 2017 an ERPA was signed with Integra Microsystems for the forward purchase of 13,716 GS VERs by Integra Micro Systems, Bangalore. We distributed 4,101 stoves to 3,100 End User women in 94 villages. In each village, women have selected a Monitor who regularly visits households and strictly monitor usage using the InfoNeeds Woodstoves monitoring solution licensed separately to NNS and Sanjeevani.
- In September 2019, after the 1st verification, NNS & Sanjeevani retired 3,873 GS VERs on behalf of Integra Micro Systems and cleared 28% of their ERPA commitment.
- In May 2021, Integra Micro Systems very generously decided to forgo the balance and terminate the ERPA on behalf of 3,100 End User women.
- In June 2021, after the 2nd verification, another 21,395 GS VERs were issued to the project.
- These were sold in the voluntary market for ₹ 2.26 crores and carbon revenue distributed to End User women in proportion to their usage days.