Solar safe water

How to Join the initiative

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Calculate your Impact

Join the Solar Safe Water initiative in Kenya, Tharaka-Nithi and contribute to all Rotary’s 7 areas of focus.

The Solar Safe Water initiative offers an easy and convinient way to create lasting sustainable development. In fact, this initiative support all Rotary’s 7 areas of focus.

By donating $145, one family will get access to hot and safe water for 7 years, Girls can go to school, local economy improves, trees are saved and greenhouse gas emissions are prevented.

Rotary clubs around the world have supported families in the Tharaka-Nithi project with impressive impact.

Climate project in Kenya, Tharaka-Nithi

400,000 people live in the province of Tharaka in Kenya, of which 97 percent are without access to safe water at home. This means that the majority of the population is dependent on firewood or charcoal to boil water for drinking and to heat water for hygiene and cooking.

This is both time consuming and expensive for families living on scarce resources, and it also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation.

To reduce emissions and strengthen local resilience while improving families’ health and socio-economic conditions, Solvatten started this project in Tharaka-Nithi County, Kenya, 2017. So far more than 40,000 people been supported with Solvatten heaters. The need is huge, and here Rotary can make a great impact for sustainable development by joining this project.

Read more about the project.

Calculate carbon emissions

 

In addition to a concrete reduction plan, investing in climate compensation projects is useful to limit global warming. By compensating for your remaining emissions, you combat climate change much faster. But notice, it is important that your compensation takes place with a real climate project that ensure a real carbon reduction that can report real data of your investment. Solvatten is, through a third party, Gold Standard certified and are soon to become certified by Gold Standard themself for their projects in Kenya.

The Solvatten’s project in the Tharaka-Nithi project in Kenya, a well-organized and well-documented climate project that also contributes to all of Rotary’s 7 focus areas, secure that your investment in compensations shows real reductions.

One Solvatten heater compensates for 7 tons of CO2 over it’s lifetime of 7 years. Make your calculation below.

Calculate carbon investment

  1. Use the result from your emission calculation in kg.
  2. One (1) Solvatten prevents 7,000 kg (7 tons) of carbon emissions. The price for one (1) Solvatten heater: $145.
  3. Climate compensate (USD) = (kg emissions) * 145 / 7,000 kg = … USD

    Example 1:
    Stockholm (ARN) to Chicago (ORD), (1 person, round trip) results in 724 kg of carbon emissions according to the calculator. Due to the high-altitude effect, the emissions doubles (by a factor 2).
    Carbon compensation investment = 724 kg * 2 * $145  / 7,000 kg =  $30

    Example 2:
    WWF’s footprint calculator gave a lifestyle result of 6,3 ton per year.
    Carbon compensation = 6,300 kg * $145 / 7,000 kg = $130

A thought-provoking comparison…

Participating in the Solar Safe Water Challenge will contribute with hot and safe water to villages and families. It also means the possibility to speed up our collective responsibility to mitigate the effects of our non-sustainable lifestyle and reduce our carbon footprint.

One (1) unit of Solvatten heaters, save 7 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions during it’s lifetime. That means 1 tonnes per year.

Emissions from developed countries lies between 4 and 20 tonnes per person and year (territorial), an average European 6,6 tonnes.

Could the Solar Safe Water Challenge be one way to take our collective responsibility to combat emissions of greenhouse gases?

 

 

Together We Fix The Planet.