Partner Spotlight: Green Social Bioethanol
Green Social Bioethanol (Green) is a social enterprise that designs, develops, and installs Ethanol Micro-Distilleries (EMDs) around the world to produce sustainable biofuel and provide people with access to clean and safe energy resources for cooking and other uses. Most recently, Green launched the first Ethanol Micro Distillery in Nigeria in the city of Ogbomosho as part of a project for promoting energy autonomy and sustainable fuel for clean cookstoves in the region of Oyo State. With the capacity to produce 1,000 liters of ethanol per day from cassava, this clean and sustainable cooking fuel will soon be available to Nigerians to prepare delicious meals using a clean and efficient cookstove and fuel.
The idea for founding the company goes back many years when Eduardo Mallmann, our CEO and Chief Engineer, astonished by the harsh reality of many countries where people still rely on solid and polluting fuels for cooking, decided to contribute a solution to this problem. With a lifetime of experience working in rural development and with a deep knowledge about the process for producing ethanol, Eduardo developed the technology of the EMD and also the concept of the Social Bioethanol. Understanding the substantial need for clean cooking, Eduardo realized that it was equally important to ensure access to affordable and safe ways of fueling these cookstoves. Otherwise, there is the great risk of people reverting to cooking methods that use polluting fuels. Therefore, since 2011, Green Social Bioethanol has been actively improving its solution for producing ethanol from locally grown crops, which lead to the implementation of the project in Ogbomosho, Nigeria.
The Social Bioethanol produced by Green is a unique fuel product for a number of reasons::
- The small-scale production size of Social Bioethanol doesn’t harm the surrounding environment and the technologies applied use locally grown crops as source material, without requiring the introduction of alien species or monoculture plantations.
- Green applies the most modern no-cook enzymes when using starch-based crops as source material, assuring energy efficiency and requiring little amounts of biomass for heating the boiler, resulting in a positive net energy balance.
- The EMD and Social Bioethanol supply chain generates employment and income for local farmers and workers.
- The co-products from the ethanol generation process such as vinasse and bagasse have high levels of nutritious content that can be used as natural fertilizers and for animal fodder, promoting increases in agricultural productivity.
Green is also strengthened by its established network of local and global partners, many of which have been made possible by our participation in the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, through which we receive important information and data that helps to grow our business and partnerships.
To learn more about our work at Green and other projects, check out our website at http://green-social.com or send an email to hello@green-social.com.
