E+Co’s mission is to empower local small and medium enterprises that supply clean, modern and affordable energy to households, businesses and communities in developing countries. E+Co provides a combination of enterprise development services and investment to local enterprises; resulting in access to energy for those using traditional, expensive, unhealthy and unreliable energy as well as the elimination of energy waste by offsetting fossil fuel use.

For more than a decade, E+Co has targeted its activities to those that innovate in the energy-environment-development finance value chain. The purpose is to stimulate investment in and services to local energy entrepreneurs -- those men and women that E+Co believes are the key actors in combating energy waste and energy poverty. E+Co's approach to this mission and purpose is to connect the dots among the variety of actors and factors needed to increase modern energy access. The approach, called the "enterprise centered business model" is market-based, flexible and built on more than a decade of experience. E+Co's role as a public purpose investment company blends best practices from philanthropic, venture capital, public and private sectors in a sector long dominated by intransient stakeholders. In the energy sector, the interventions have been dominated by large, fossil fuel based, utility centered and multi-lateral/government financed power plants. E+Co's model fosters an emphasis on decentralized, renewable energy and energy efficiency, private sector led businesses. It is the commencement of a new energy finance paradigm.

E+Co’s approach is to empower local small and medium enterprises that supply clean and affordable energy to households, businesses and communities in developing countries. We do this by providing business development services and investment capital to enterprises. The combination of services and capital is one thing that distinguishes E+Co’s work from others in the clean energy field. Our model is based on supporting local entrepreneurs that deliver affordable, available and appropriate modern energy options to all but the “poorest” of the poor, recognizing that these enterprises can serve all customers, but that government and social subsidy is needed at the true “bottom of the pyramid.”

This approach, while it may seem obvious, entails a massive shift in the current paradigm, with particular emphasis on demonstrating, validating and institutionalizing changes in human capacity development, money and rule-changing.

E+Co creates its direct impact by investing in individual energy enterprises and building a portfolio of companies that provide clean energy products and services. These impacts are then measured across a triple bottom line of financial, social and environmental impacts.

Since 1998,

-3.4 million people have been served with clean energy via E+Co supported enterprises;

-$140 million of co-financing has been mobilized;

-203,710 tons of firewood has been saved; and,

-58 million litres of clean water provided.

Specific examples of direct impacts at the enterprise level include local job creation and reforestation from a small hydroelectric project in Honduras that displaces 100% diesel powered energy; solar home systems displacing kerosene lanterns for lighting in rural Nicaragua, India, Nepal and Tanzania, reducing indoor air pollution; liquid petroleum gas substitution for firewood and charcoal in rural areas of Ghana, Mali and Senegal, countries experiencing high rates of deforestation, and small fruit and vegetable farmers in Brazil and Tanzania drying their fruits through solar power, decreasing spoilage and increasing their incomes by multiples. All achieved through sustainable, growing businesses that received services and capital from E+Co.

The long-term E+Co vision can be summarized as Universal Sustainable Energy, a world where all have access to modern energy. Our view of the role E+Co plays in this is informed by the experience of the microfinance sector: you can change a world of billions by changing 60, 80 or 100 million of that larger population. Changing what seems to be a very small slice of the potential market may change everything by bringing enough experience to create a “tipping point.” We think we can achieve the “tipping point” by reaching 80 to 100 million people by 2020.

E+Co has proven over its 14 years of operations that for an investment of US$7, local businesses can bring clean energy to a poor person. Through this investment, you get business creation, energy delivery and CO2 savings. Our 2008-2012 business model is based on borrowing US$150 million at 6% and packaging its portfolio of carbon offsets for the VER market so that more than 300 investments are made, providing 25+ million people with clean energy access and offsetting 15 million tons of CO2 by 2012. E+Co is at a critical juncture of tackling two of the defining issues of this century - climate and poverty - which are inextricably bound to energy.