THE CARBON WAR

236
The Winning of The Carbon War
Notwithstanding these problems of a “mature” market, I know Sam and Ned,
and know that they would not have sanctioned any of what may have been
going on in the field.
d.light was born in 2004, when Sam was a US Peace Corps volunteer in
Benin, Nigeria. On that tour of duty, he witnessed a neighbour’s son badly
burned by a toppled kerosene lamp. He knew that this would never have happened
with a solar light. His experiences in the field also showed him close-up
the many other benefits that solar could bring to the two billion people in the
poor nations who have no access to reliable energy. He returned to America,
and enrolled in a class at Stanford University with an interesting theme: Entrepreneurial
Design for Extreme Affordability. Ned Tozun also enrolled. Or rather
he tried to, and was rejected. He turned up for lectures anyway.
Sam and Ned struck up a partnership and friendship in that class that
gave birth to d.light in 2006, the same year I started SolarAid. Now d.light is
a social venture selling over 5 million solar lights a year from ten field offices
and four hubs in Africa, China, South Asia and the United States. They have
designed and sold over ten million solar light and power products in all, in 62
countries, improving the lives of over 50 million people in the process. Their
mission is to reach 100 million people by 2020. SunnyMoney is one of their
biggest distributors. Most of our 0.6 million light sales last year were d.light
products.
We drink beer, we eat chow mein, we fix problems, we plot ways to synergise
more effectively going forward. We agree that each social venture is
stronger if the other is strong.
We talk excitedly about d.light’s brand new product, the lowest-cost solar
light on the market. It will retail for around $5, 40% less than the current cheapest
product, also a d.light design. We strategise how this product can help lift
SunnyMoney’s sales, in which countries, in which market sectors.
Sam and Ned show us pictures of President Obama inspecting the light
last week, on his trip to Nairobi. They have created something amazing, in
this and their other products, and in the organisation they dreamed up and
breathed life into.
As I am driven back to my hotel afterwards, the car passes a Shell filling
station and a thought strikes me as I look at it. d.light is the most successful
manufacturer of solar lights in the world, so far. SunnyMoney is the most
successful distributor of solar lights in Africa, so far. These organisations were
set up by two students and a maverick environmental campaigner. Where
were the big organisations? Both Shell and BP had solar companies in 2006.