ALMIGHTY SERVICES PLUS

  Benin Republic faces a high level deforestation rate due to the lack of electricity and the relatively high poverty rate. So, people have to relate to a massive use of fossil fuels like wood charcoal and firewood to meet their energy needs, despite important environmental, social and economic consequences. 

  We address that problem by designing a holistic solution which consists of charbriquettes production from agricultural residues, followed by the production of modern design clean cookstoves and finally an ambitious reforestation campaign. 

   Our project is a life changing one for millions of people locally and globally as our products are cleaner, safer, and cheaper than any on the field, and have real potential to empower lives  

   In Benin Republic as in many developing countries, wood charcoal and firewood are the main source of energy. According to PANER, a local institution in charge of renewable energies development,in Benin only, more than 500,000 tons of wood charcoal and firewood are consumed annually, aggravating the phenomenon of deforestation. According to UNEP, deforestation is responsible of at least 8% of total emission of greenhouse gases in the world with more than 3 billion of people still rely on wood charcoal and wood for cooking purposes

   Their utilization affects the health, in particular the risk of respiratory diseases and lung cancer, caused by the inhalation of CO2-laden fumes emitted during combustion. It has also economic consequences as the gradual scarcity of wood leads to a significant increase of wood and wood charcoal prices. 
 

   Also, people not only rely on fossil fuels to cook, they also use inefficient stoves to prepare their meals. They are of high energy consumption and aggravate air pollution. According to WHO, more than 3,5 millions of deaths in the world are attributed to the non clean cooking

 Our project benefits mostly people at the bottom of the pyramid. It means that people living with less than 2USD per day. They constitute also the majority of the fossil fuels consumers, living in the centre and south of Benin Republic.

 The consumption of those fossil fuels makes them vulnerable, because they spend enough money for the cooking fuels budget and at the same time the fuels they acquire affect their health. The most affected in that situation are women and girls who are most related to cooking purposes.According to WHO, from the 3,5 millions deaths in the world, at least 60% are women and girls. 
 

 Then, our project will directly benefit women and girls as our charbriquettes and modern cookstoves are safe and clean,don't emit toxic fumes. So, they preserve the consumer’s health and improve their lives as they are cheaper.They are also suppliers of our raw materials (cassava starch) and have then an opportunity to earn money to improve their quality lives

  In other way, our project also benefits dozen of workers. They are mostly former waste pickers with no backgrounds. We recruit them and give them the appropriate training. 

  Our solution is a holistic one and is designed to cover all aspects of problems identified and delivers sustainable alternatives regarding the beneficiaries situation.

  So, our solution is the production of charcoal briquettes from agricultural residues, the production of modern design clean cookstoves which consume at least 60% less fuel, and finally the reforestation campaign in order to restore our decimated forests and have more socio economic impacts.

- Firstly, the charcoal briquettes represent a credible alternative to wood charcoal and wood. We made them from organic wastes such as cotton seed husks, rice husks,coconut shells, sawdust, purchased from local factories and rice mills. We have an industrial factory and the technology used for the briquetting stage is the extrusion. Our briquette press works with a screw propeller and it results high quality strong briquettes which are automatically cutted in uniform length pieces. Our trademark is ‘’GANKAN’’ and the briquettes are accessible at 0,2$/kg for the final consumer
  
- Secondly, we design a modern and high quality clean cookstove which have a good appearance and is a revolutionary design in our local place, as those models are imported and are very expensive. They have a ceramic combustion chamber which allows less fuels consumption. We have one pot and double pots models which match different needs on the field. Our trademark is ‘’DONA’’ and the small model of single pot is accessible at 15$,the big model of single pot at 24$ ; the double pots (unique model) at 40$. We also offer installments for the ‘’double pots’’ to allow poor customers to purchase it.

   Finally, we’ll launch a reforestation campaign in Benin by the end of this year with the acquisition of a 10 hectares land. We’ll plant trees to help offset CO2 in the nature and for land restoration. We have also socio-economic intentions for that initiative as the trees we’ll plant are cashew trees. So, within two years, we can also benefit directly from those trees as we’ll have dozen of tons of cashew nuts which can be processed and create more value. We’ll then create jobs for rural women and youths and we’ll contribute to the development of our community.

So, we create value with the available resources, we transform our wastes for sustainable consumption and delivers clean products for populations. That's our vision of circular economy

Our solution is innovative because of its comprehensive approach to the issues addressed. We have developed an integrated system that solves environmental, social and economic issues at the same time. This approach differentiates us from other solutions where just a part of the problem is treated.

 For example, to solve the problem of deforestation and pollution in all its forms, social problems (unemployment, gender equality etc.), and economic problems (low purchasing power, precariousness, vulnerability of communities to the base etc.), we have designed this 3-in-1 project (Charcoal Briquettes, Improved Cooking Stoves, Reforestation and Implementation of a Semi-Industrial Cashew Processing Unit). 

Our solution has clear potential to resolve those three questions in a comprehensive and satisfactory way, without mobilizing huge financial resources while most projects involve only one or two of these initiatives,however with substantial financial resources, with minimized impacts in the community

For the sole involved initiative, we have two main technologies involved in our briquette production process. 

Firstly, we adopt the pyrolysis technology as the technique for raw materials carbonization. Pyrolysis is the chemical decomposition of a substance obtained by intense heating in the absence of oxygen. So, it's that technology we use to convert the raw materials (cottonseed husks, rice husks, sawdust and wood chips..) into finished products with high carbon content and optimal calorific value. Those finished products are conveyed to another technological stage for their final treatment.

 Secondly, we have the extrusion technology. It's a technique which allows the finished products to pass through a conveying mold under high pressure and heat using a propeller. So The result is strong and uniform charcoal briquettes which constitute a credible alternative to fossil fuels while it gives second life to waste, and help decrease the pressure on our forests.

The problem we are addressing is the phenomenon of deforestation in our country and in developing countries in general. In fact, to solve a problem, we need to understand the causes, and before making decisions or design solutions which match real needs of target groups, we must involve them and with their collaboration build a sustainable solution. In that way, we have great chance to address radically the problem. That's exactly what we do in this project

 Indeed the wood charcoal and wood fuel production are responsible of more than half of the phenomenon of deforestation. We have the ultimate way to address that challenge, as our solution helps reduce pressure on forests, helps reduce greenhouse gases emissions, and at the same time procure economic benefits for women, girls,and generally all rural people who are active in the wood charcoal production and/or illegal logging of trees.

We provide them with value and fair jobs which allow us to earn substantial revenues. They are no longer related to such activities which cause and aggravate the phenomenon; they are living safely, they improve their quality lives and are able now to offer education and care to their children etc.

    Our solution is serving at least 800 households (Considering 4 people in one household), so we currently serve 3200 people

   * In one year, our solution will serve at least:

     9,000 households (3000 households for briquettes and 6000 households for cookstoves) so 36,000 people impacted

    * In five years:

    We would have launched the cashew nuts processing facility with minimum people working (capacity of 2500 tons of nuts per year within the next two years) of 500 people, with 80% women.The reforestation activity and cashew nuts processing facility will serve more than 20,000 people (factory employees with their families,more than 3000 farmers,hundreds of trucks drivers etc.). 

    The charcoal briquettes production facility will increase by at least 50%, as we’ll reuse the byproduct of cashew nuts seeds pyrolysis (charcoal dust derived from the nuts carbonization).

     The cookstoves production will also increase from current 500 units per month to at least 2000 units per month. We’ll then impact for both briquettes and cookstoves activity, more than 30,000 households and 120,000 people.

     To conclude, we can state that in the next five years, 150,000 – 200,000 people would be positively impacted with our holistic solution ; and we’ll become one of the top social enterprise in the whole Africa 

Our principal goal is to create many thousands of jobs and impacted significantly millions of lives locally and internationally with our solution while have huge environmental and socio-economic impacts. 

* Then our goal within the next year is:

    - Firstly, to reinforce our position of leader in the clean cooking field in the local market (briquettes and cookstoves). 

    - Secondly, it’s the establishment of our cashew nuts processing plant (with capacity of 2500 tons per year) which will allow us to increase at the same time the briquettes production (from 1200 tons/year to 2000 tons/year)

* In the next five years :

      - we would have increased our briquettes production (from 2000 tons/year to 6000 tons/year with expansion to neighboring countries within the next three years)

       - we would have increased the cookstoves facility production from 500 units to 2000 units per month

       - and enlarge the cashew nuts facility capacity from 2500 tons to at least 15,000 tons a year. 

The barriers that currently exist are essentially technical and financial

* For the next year, we’ll need to overcome a major technical problem, which is the utilization of cashew nuts seeds in the process of gazeification and reuse at the same time the byproduct from that operation to increase the briquette production facility. There are also financial barriers, as we’ll need important financial resources (at least 500K - 3500K USD) to accomplish those goals. 

 * Same for the next five years, we think that we would have overcome all major technical problems, but the financial barriers can persist as we’ll need important financial resources to accomplish our goals as listed above (at least 2000K USD – 15.000K USD) 

To overcome the major technical barriers, in addition to the Mechanics Department of the National University in Benin, we’ll request technical assistance from organizations like PLANETE BOIS with whom we have already established connection.They are specialized in energy field and have accurate knowledge of various pyrolysis technologies and methodologies.They offer consultancy to institutions like French Development Agency (FDA) in bio energy sector. They will help us design the pyrolysis process for cashew nuts processing and the workable combination which allows us to have substantial ready to use raw materials for briquetting department. Other technical barriers can be directly overcomed by ourselves regarding the experience we have, and also with support of our first technical partner

  To deal with financial barriers, we’ll seek for a combination of grants, equity and debt.

  Locally, we have the opportunity to apply for USADF grant application next February 2020 in order to secure grant funding. Technical and financial supports are also available from PROCAD, GIZ, ENABEL Etc. 

   We have also the opportunity to access carbon credits and have substantial resources as our project contributes to reduce significantly CO2 emissions and then we can qualify for that type of support

   Internationally, we can for example apply for the INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS FOR FORESTS and secure grant funding and organizations like Moringa FUND specialized in agroforestry projects in Sub Saharan Africa countries, which invests in equity, and Climate Investment Fund (CIF) which invests in equity and/or debts

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ALMIGHTY SERVICES staff is composed of three persons. The CEO and the production head; The COO and the Marketing and Human Resources Manager; the Assistant of COO and the Raw materials supply manager.

 We currently have 6 full time and 4 part time workers at factory, and we’ll hire 20 supplemental workers in the next three months with the expansion of our activities. 

The accountant is a contractor as he's independent. 

 We have also a board of 3 advisors, 5 major distributors and we’ll enlarge our network to 40 major distributors within the next three months

We are working on the briquetting sector since more than 4 years now. Our company has made a technological leap in recent months as we have substantially improved our production processes, which has enable us today to optimize the production chain.

In fact, when we started that activity, we have faced several major technical problems. But, with passion and motivation, we have overcome the majority with the assistance of the Mechanics Faculty of Polytechnic School of the National University 

Their support allows us to build a dryer made of refractory bricks, which constitute a real progress compared to the sun drying in open air method with all related climatic hazards and the relatively long drying time (about 7-10 days). Now, we are able to dry a larger quantity of charcoal briquettes in a very small area within 24 hours only.
Their support also enabled us to identify the screw press operation and its accurate maintenance 

So today, we can say that the support of that institution has substantially helped us remove barriers in the implementation of our project. Before their intervention we produced about  8-10 tons of briquettes per month and currently we produce about 20 tons per month with the same production line, except the new dryer that has been integrated to the production chain.
The prototype of cookstoves is also validated by the same technical partner.
We are now solicited abroad to offer trainings. No team has done it till now in Benin.

We have different types of partnerships with organizations

  * We have a Technical partner which is the Mechanic Faculty of the University of Abomey Calavi in Benin. It assists us in the technical field, the production process optimization, the laboratory analysis etc.

   * Other technical partner is ''INITIATIVES CLIMAT'' which supports us in the communication of our activities through their platform and the execution of several events (training, fair, forum and conferences etc.) in different countries in Africa. The latest event is a youth entrepreneurship forum held in Morocco on June 2019, where we have launched the ‘’african cluster of eco-friendly charcoal producers’’, with the support of GEF/SGP and the swiss cooperation

Our solution is already on the market and is highly appreciated. We produce eco-friendly charcoal briquettes which trademark is «GANKAN» essentially from agricultural residues. Our briquettes don’t emit toxic fumes or spark, they burn longer and are even cheaper than the traditional charcoal.

 The char-briquettes are used often for cooking purposes and also for grilling (barbecue). Our solution benefits mostly people who is at the bottom of the pyramid. It means that people who is living with less than 2 USD per day. They constitute the majority of the wood and wood charcoal consumers living in the centre and south of Benin Republic. 

In fact, the end-users are 

  - The households where the common users are usually women and girls

  - The street food vendors and restaurants, 

   - Institutional customers like school and hospitals canteen, hotels etc. 

 For a better accessibility of the products, we have designed a B2B approach where our direct paying customers are mostly the distributors. We have for the moment five distributors which supply 90% of households and other customers

   Secondly, we'll manufacture efficient, energy saving and design disruptive cooking stoves which trademark is « DONA » that allow the consumers to reduce their fuel consumption by at least 40%, and help them make more savings. We have already finalized the prototype with assistance of our current technical partner

   Finally, our reforestation activity and its development will enroll many thousands of beneficiaries and customers locally and internationally

We are a social enterprise with strong commercial and economic potential activities. To ensure our stability and also commercial sustainability, we will have to establish a strong customers portfolio. It means that, our first path to sustainability is the revenues from our sales. It will help us strengthen the financial position of the company and increase its competitiveness. Thus, the company will continue to operate normally with the necessary infrastructure and materials and appropriate working capital for its operations.

 In addition, being a green business, we can access carbon finance, which is a stable source of ancillary revenues for the company. For that, we must address a specialized firm with optimal knowledge of procedures and mechanisms for obtaining carbon certifications.

 Also, we’ll apply:

   - For major international business plan competitions such as the Ashden Awards, Postcode Lotteries Green challenge,  the St Andrews prize, the Chivas Regal Competition, the African Entrepreneurship Awards etc., 

   - International Funding opportunities such as ENGIE Corporate Foundation(Grants for Improved Energy Access) a funding opportunity for companies, DIV (Development Innovation Ventures) of USAID,Innovative Partnerships for forests, 

    - Local funding opportunities like Grants from USADF BENIN, GIZ, ENABEL, loans from Benin Investment Forum etc. 

   With all those opportunities,our revenues will increase significantly and we should cover the expenses of our organization within the next three or five next years maximum 

Since we have secured the supply of raw materials, the bare bones of a wider application of our briquette production are competitiveness and profitability. Same for the cookstoves production facility also, as we have the prototype and the raw materials are available.

So, we apply to Solve as we are convinced to benefit some experiences and knowledge from like minded entrepreneurs and also support from mentors.

 Being a solver will allow us to integrate the global community of Solvers, and connect with alumni like Green Keepers Africa from Benin and many others around the globe. Establishing connections and exchanges with them will surely help us find innovative methods, partnerships and strategies to make for example significant economies of scale to be competitive and profitable, while making concrete and measurable impacts. 

 Being a solver will also help us access international markets and gain more visibility and recognition of our work

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* We want to partner with MIT-D LAB, as that institution has conducted several researches in the charcoal briquettes field. So, we would like to partner with them in order to benefit from their lessons, knowledge and great connections with other players of the sector they have worked with. We can also offer them our production site as a test site for conducting research work

* We would like to partner with an organization like Acumen and benefit from their long experience and mostly from their training centre in order to improve our business model, so to better develop our project. Further, we would like to have funding assistance from them as they are specialized in impact funding

* We would like to connect with organizations which can help us in monitoring and evaluation of our environmental, social and economic impacts 

* We'll also be comfortable to connect with other lead companies in the clean cooking sector in Africa like BURN MANUFACTURING, in America like Kingsford Charcoal; in order to learn from their knowledge and experience sharing to globally advance the sector.

In the same way, we would like to partner with major cashew nuts industry players like USIBRAS, and factories in Benin Republic; and naturally with the African Cashew Alliance (ACA)

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We'll utilize the GM Prize to advance our work in the briquette production sector.

We are working each day to recycle raw materials which are waste. So, we are promoting zero waste, as they constitute a source of multiple hazards.

The result of our work is offering to people great products which are carbon neutral, then contribute to the protection of our environment and saves lives as they are clean. Our work promotes then zero carbon emissions in the nature

For that, we fit the criteria for this prize and we'll utilize the prize to purchase a carbonization stove of bigger capacity which adopts the pyrolysis technology (rotating stove). That kind of equipment can recycle huge amount of raw materials within 24 hours (input about 40 tons/day for output about 15 tons/day). So that, we confirm our quest of zero waste and the machine is no polluting as it releases negligible quantities of toxic fumes in the nature, we confirm also our quest of zero carbon emitted in the nature. 

That purchase will strengthen our work and help us make more environmental and socio-economic impacts

We’ll utilize the Innovation for Women Prize to notably advance our work, specifically in the reforestation sector. 

As we are involved in the clean cooking field, our target people to be impacted are women and girls who have to deplete forests to gather wood and fuel for income, instead of devoting their time to other valuable priorities such as revenues generating activities for the women and education for the girls.

So, while we offer sustainable fuel for populations to use, and allow them to change their habits, we must necessarily offer alternative to those who were involved in the wood charcoal or wood fire production.

 In that way, we have identified a renowned organization which can offer grant funding to our company for the purchase of cashew nuts processing units equipments. The sole condition is to have at least 25% match funding amount. So, we’ll utilize this prize to secure that match funding amount, and then we’ll have the opportunity to attract supplemental grant funding. This will represent a step-change in the factory launching process, as seeking funding for working capital will be more appreciated by investors.

 In that way, we’ll change and improve thoroughly the lives of many thousands of women in our communities with most valuable jobs which definitely improve their quality lives and also for their girls who can access education and will contribute also in the future to her community development

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