Is Kiva "Green"? - Screening businesses for environmental sustainability

[Guest]

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[hbcheney]

Hi,

I just saw a PBS show about Kiva. It sounds great and I want to participate, but, the one concern I have is that the businesses are not being screened for environmental impacts. 

For example, one the businesses featured on the PBS show was a woman named Molly who wanted to expand her charcoal-selling business in Uganda.  A week or so ago I saw another PBS show about how the mountain gorillas in Africa are almost extinct b/c native people are burning down their habitant to create charcoal, since charcoal is one of the only viable businesses they have there.

I wholly support fostering third world businesses and helping them become more self-sufficient, but NOT if those businesses have serious detrimental environmental impacts.  There are enough already-existing businesses all over the world (the US included) that at minimum are not environmentally sustainable and at most are causing severe damage to our planet… let’s not foster any more of them!   

Can you tell me what Kiva is doing about this issue?  Thank you.

[Soriak]

Welcome

Kiva doesn't screen businesses for environmental sustainability but you can pick directly to whom you wish to loan. If you take a look at the business description, you should be able to estimate the sort of impact it may have on the environment and avoid the business if you think it is too high. We also have some Vegans, for example, who avoid businesses dealing with meat.

Hope that helps 

[Dagfinn]

This is an interesting question - let me share the view I take on this:  It is I and all other Kiva supporters that makes up Kiva and to make Kiva green or at least greener I have to turn to myself.  Hence, I have started bringing used plastic bags when shopping so as not to increase more to the garbage problem.  I change products when I find out they use to much packing material (example a tea bag wrapped 5 times!) and I do not shop for the sheer pleasure of shopping.
I no longer have a car and use the public transport instead (saving me money as well).  I do recycle glass and paper and so on.  I turn off electricuty I do not need and have lowered the temperature 2 degrees.

My point being - I start with myself and not with a woman in Uganda that does her best to make a decent living.  I am sure I can find more ways for myself to be greener and as one small wheel of Kiva make it green;) - I would challenge your concern asking you what else I myself can do to make Kiva green 

[KivanSteven]

Always valid concerns hbcheney...that have recently been addressed here on KF, but of course the issue is always a fresh one...here are a couple links where you will find discussion relating to gorilla habitat and the bush meat issue.

http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,1025.130.html

http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,1279.0.html

[Milford]

It is I and all other Kiva supporters that makes up Kiva and to make Kiva green or at least greener I have to turn to myself. 

(...)

My point being - I start with myself and not with a woman in Uganda that does her best to make a decent living.

I try to start with both myself and my borrowers. I agree entirely with what you said about Kiva being us, its users, and thus I feel it is up to me to screen whatever loans I choose to fund. As a suggestion to the initial poster, I'd say one could choose to only fund those businesses who clearly have a environmental-friendly side to them, such as repairing a bus, expanding a scrap business, and so on. There are quite a few of those out there if one is looking.

[Environmental Care]

Hi gang!
I have been chairing the Environmental Loan Group, http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=231
We share sustainable lending opportunities when we spot them. It would be great if you would join us!
We have also offered Kiva.org assistance in developing environmental guidelines, etc. as they are working in that direction, but it is excruciatingly slow. So far, they have not asked for it. It would be great to know, for example, whether a person growing vegetables is using chemical fertilizers and pesticides or not. For now, we keep a look out for things like solar, tricycle and bicycle transport, reused, public transport and recycling. Also basic food production, as well as health and education (as these lead to slower population growth rates, which ultimately affect the environment via consumption of resources) are appropriate, although, ultimately, each lender makes his or her own decision.
Keep this discussion going - I love to hear that others are as concerned about what kind of world we are enabling!
Melanie

[norak]

Make sure you read and don't just loan randomly!

[Rob1615]

I will say that I know firsthand of an MFI who provides its loan officers with ecological training enabling them to monitor compliance with the government's permitting requirements.  With that said, I can't vouch for the soundness of this particular country's policies.  So long as they're operating lawfully, is it reasonable to ask Kiva or the MFI to impose its own judgment?  Or is it better to simply leave it up to the lender as Kiva was designed...

[Environmental Care]

I am enjoying reading this discussion. I think we really need to think about what kind of world we are creating; in particular, Kiva needs to think about what kind of world we are creating. If someone's business creates environmental impacts that harm society (such as desertification, climate change, water pollution due to fertilizers and pesticide, local air pollution with increasing the number of taxis, charcoal sellers, etc.), then the potential for their neighbors to live healthily is reduced, leading to increased poverty long-term.
It is really hard to judge from the short descriptions whether a business is sustainable or not. Being with Give Green - Environmental Loans team, there are a lot of members who would like to support agricultural loans, but it is impossible to determine if the fertilizers are sustainable or not; whether a rickshaw or tricycle is motorized or not (motorcycles produce very high rates of small particulates), etc., etc. We, as lenders and Kiva supporters, need to push for change. Kiva lends almost $1,000,000 per week, every week, over $55,000,000 since inception. Who spends that kind of money these days and doesn't plan to mediate and minimize the environmental impacts?!?
By the way, the Environmental Loan Group has merged with Give Green; we are now Give Green - Environmental Loans. The url is the same: www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=231
Thanks!
Melanie (chair)

[redstarr]

One of the things I like about Kiva that's green is that it's so electronic.  Everything's on the internet, no uneccessary paper waste.  All my updates, account statements, everything are paper-free. 

Plus, I've yet to recieve any extra junk mail from being a part of Kiva.  Some charitable organizations sell or share their members info to other organizations and you get a bunch of solicitations to donate to them in your mailbox.  None of that happens with Kiva.

[waywardcats]

I am enjoying reading this discussion. I think we really need to think about what kind of world we are creating; in particular, Kiva needs to think about what kind of world we are creating. If someone's business creates environmental impacts that harm society (such as desertification, climate change, water pollution due to fertilizers and pesticide, local air pollution with increasing the number of taxis, charcoal sellers, etc.), then the potential for their neighbors to live healthily is reduced, leading to increased poverty long-term.
It is really hard to judge from the short descriptions whether a business is sustainable or not. Being with Give Green - Environmental Loans team, there are a lot of members who would like to support agricultural loans, but it is impossible to determine if the fertilizers are sustainable or not; whether a rickshaw or tricycle is motorized or not (motorcycles produce very high rates of small particulates), etc., etc. We, as lenders and Kiva supporters, need to push for change. Kiva lends almost $1,000,000 per week, every week, over $55,000,000 since inception. Who spends that kind of money these days and doesn't plan to mediate and minimize the environmental impacts?!?
By the way, the Environmental Loan Group has merged with Give Green; we are now Give Green - Environmental Loans. The url is the same: www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=231
Thanks!
Melanie (chair)

Hi Melanie,

I have to disagree with your premise that Kiva lends money.  I lend money through Kiva as do 400,000+ other people from all over the world  Kiva facilitates those loans, but that does not mean Kiva is doing the lending.  The reason that Kiva lenders can fund nearly 1,000,000 in loans in a week is that Kiva makes those loans available to us through a lot of hard work and outreach to new field partners.  If you wish Kiva to limit availability of loans to only those that are somehow certified to be environmentally friendly (or even environmentally neutral) we would have a LOT fewer loans available to fund.

If what you want is for Kiva to ask their Field Partners to be more specific when posting loans so that the description gives an indication of fertilizer types, then I think that is a reasonable suggestion.  I would propose that you contact Kiva customer service or participate in the upcoming conference call and make that suggestion.

However, if you are suggesting that Kiva limit loan availability to only sustainable businesses then I think you are not fully thinking that through.  First, who will make the decision as to whether each entrepreneur is using sustainable practices or not?  And if not, how does refusing to list the loan through Kiva support the elimination of poverty? 

Let me try to illuminate my point using a current loan:


Eric Kurankye in Ghana
Eric Kurankye is married and has 3 children. Eric makes and sells palm oil at Odumasi near Cape Coast, which he has done for about 8 years. He owns a taxi which he uses to earn additional income. His wife is a petty trader. Eric uses his income to pay the children's school fees, rent, utility bills and other family expenses.

Eric will use the loan as additional capital to enable him to purchase more palm fruit for the production of palm oil to meet the increase in demand by his customers. With the new profits from his expanded business, Eric plans to save towards a house he wants to put up for his children, and also invest in his taxi which is giving him problems.

In the picture is him beside his taxi which generates a little income for him.

Is it your intention that Kiva not list Eric's loan for his palm oil business because he also drives a taxi?  Do you expect Eric to buy a new hybrid car to use for his taxi service before you consider his business sustainable?  What if Eric is buying his palm fruit from an unsustainable grower?  Who do you expect to investigate all these issues for you?

In the mean time, it sounds as though Eric has customer demand now that he just needs a little help to fulfill.  Once that is done he can move on to other priorities in this life, more comfortable housing for he and his children and perhaps a new part for his ailing taxi.  Does the Field Partner tell Eric that he can only have the loan if he changes to a sustainable supplier (who may be more expensive and negate any profits)?  Do they tell him that he can only have the loan if he stops driving his taxi because it may contribute to polluting his town?  Or in your scenario does the Field Partner take on this loan themselves and forgo Kiva funds because this business does not meet your sustainability standards? 

So when you ask the question:

Who spends that kind of money these days and doesn't plan to mediate and minimize the environmental impacts?!?

How serious do you expect Kiva to be about your environmental concerns and how exactly do you suggest that they implement your suggestion?  Are you willing to convert your Kiva lending dollars into Kiva donation dollars in order to support the certification process that would be needed to have Kiva list only sustainable loans?  How much of a burden do you wish to put onto the poor to act in ways that you deem are environmentally sustainable?

-Kerry-

[RichardF]

Poverty Mapping: Global Poverty-Biodiversity Map

Use of map overlays to identify relationships between biodiversity and poverty. This map may be used to show areas in which biodiversity is threatened. Areas where high poverty and high population density coincides with high biodiversity may indicate areas in which poor people likely have no other choice than to unsustainably extract resources, in turn threatening biodiversity. The map has been produced from three primary data sources - stunted growth data collected on first level administrative units from FAO (FAO 2004), population density from LandScan (LandScan, 2002), and areas of high biological significance (major tropical wilderness and biodiversity hotspots) from Conservation International (Christ et al., 2003).

To highlight areas with highest priorities for poverty alleviation and conservation, data on stunted growth in children (under 5) - at first level sub-national administrative units (FAO, 2004) - was "filtered" to only display stunting in areas with high population density. Population density data was based on the Landscan data model, (Landscan, 2002), while areas of high biological significance - major tropical wilderness and biodiversity hotspots - was based on Conservation International data (Christ et al, 2003). Biodiversity hotspots are defined as "regions that harbour a great diversity of endemic species and, at the same time, have been significantly impacted and altered by human activities". Wildlife areas are "at least 70% intact and are generally under less pressure from encroaching human populations than are the biodiversity hotspots" (Meyers et al., 2000 in Christ et al., 2003, p. 3).

For references, please see the paper, linked in the sidebar.

[waywardcats]

Some excerpts from the linked report:

- Integrating poverty-conservation maps in poverty reduction strategies:
Mainstreaming ecosystem and conservation maps in high-level poverty reduction
strategies and linking these to poverty maps is essential towards promoting pro-poor
ecosystem management in national-level planning and programming.
Integrating poverty-conservation maps in poverty alleviation strategies helps
indicate where poor people significantly depend on biodiversity assets, where poor
communities will benefit from ecosystem management, etc. Such information can
be used to improve the geographic targeting of poverty reduction and conservation
plans, programs, and other initiatives. Although conservation-poverty data have
seldom been integrated, poverty maps have been used in national poverty
reduction strategies, in some instances affecting substantial sums of money. In
Vietnam, for example, poverty maps were used to geographically target Vietnam’s
World Bank-funded poverty reduction initiatives amounting to US$240 million,
while in Nicaragua poverty maps influenced the allocation of US$1.1 billion in
Nicaragua’s Strengthened Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (Henninger
and Snel, 2002).

Identifying biodiversity threats due to environmental changes and
shocks: Droughts, floods, earthquakes, conflicts and other environmental and
anthropogenic pressures affect large numbers of people - often in the poorest
segments of society - and place significant pressure on terrestrial and marine
biodiversity. Spatial analysis and modelling – that combines biophysical and
socio-economic data – can be used to evaluate existing and potential biodiversity
threats due to environmental changes. These models in conjunction with poverty
scenarios can indicate how anticipated changes or shocks affect poor peoples’
livelihoods that significantly depend on natural resources wealth – e.g., through
declined agricultural productivity, decreasing fish stocks, damaged reefs,
displacement, etc. These analyses have the potential to promote a shift from
disaster relief to hazard preparedness by identifying regions and peoples at risk to
shocks and disasters. Global climate change scenarios – over the next 30 to 50
years – have already been used in conjunction with poverty maps to evaluate the
potential effect of global climate and demographic change on poor livestock
keepers in developing countries.

Concluding remarks and next steps
As highlighted throughout this report there are numerous potential poverty-conservation
mapping applications of interest to IUCN and its member. Such
applications include substantiating biodiversity’s role in food security to
geographically targeting areas for pro-poor conservation management. Although
maps and mapping applications offer an important tool to improve
understanding of the relationship between poverty and conservation, their use is
not a panacea for solving poverty-conservation problems. Mapping applications
need to be used together, not in lieu of, other approaches: such as with multi-level
socio-economic assessments, traditional and community-based knowledge, statistical
analyses, etc.
The poverty-conservation mapping applications noted in this report are intended to
spark discussion on the complex correlation between biological resources and income
and on new methods that may be used to address this relationship. In light of this
report’s proposed poverty-conservation applications, the following key questions are
posed to further stimulate discussion:

Is poverty-conservation mapping a useful tool to IUCN and its member
organizations?

Are the proposed poverty-conservation mapping applications in line with
IUCN interests? Are there other potential applications?

Provided interest, how can poverty-conservation mapping be institutionalised
in IUCN? Similarly, how can IUCN play a leading role in promoting poverty-conservation
mapping applications among its member organizations?
Consideration must be made to balance the promotion of mapping applications
with other qualitative and quantitative approaches.

What role can IUCN play in overcoming institutional and human mapping and
analysis capacity deficiencies, particularly in developing countries where most
of the world’s natural wealth is found?

What are other important issues regarding the adoption and promotion of
poverty-conservation mapping applications that need addressing?

What are proposed next steps to support poverty-conservation mapping in
IUCN?

After looking at this map and report I see a useful tool that the World Conservation Union (IUCN) is exploring for helping Global Agency identify people and areas in the greatest need of aid.  I am not sure Richard, what usefulness you might be proposing for Kiva lenders?

-Kerry-

[RichardF]

I am not sure Richard, what usefulness you might be proposing for Kiva lenders?

Odd as it may seem, not all of my thoughts and comments at Kiva Friends are about Kiva Lenders.   

That said, consider the statement I bolded above.

Areas where high poverty and high population density coincides with high biodiversity may indicate areas in which poor people likely have no other choice than to unsustainably extract resources, in turn threatening biodiversity.

With this inherent conflict between high poverty and high population density on the one hand, with high biodiversity hotspots and major wilderness areas on the other, an environmental/lending strategy/policy that punishes the working poor also is unsustainable.  Holistic sustainable development thinking goes beyond environmental issues alone.  "The field of sustainable development can be conceptually divided into four general dimensions: social, economic, environmental and institutional. The first three dimensions address key principles of sustainability, while the final dimension addresses key institutional policy and capacity issues."

As Kiva lenders, I don't believe boycotting certain types of loans (e.g., selling charcoal) has any strategic impact because every listing gets funded.  That's just the way it is.  On a personal level, I also believe it's fine to make choices about what we do and do not support.  For example, as a vegetarian, I do that all the time by keeping the impact on animals in mind every time I consider a loan.

A related but substantively distinct option for lenders interested in sustainability issues is from the perspective of advocacy and support of sustainable alternatives.  For example, Betsy Teutsch of GreenMicrofinance made the following comment to me.

Clean, local, renewable energy can unlock prosperity, sustainably, for the 1.6 billion who have no access to grid energy or piped gas.  Since Microfinance Clients mostly need power for lights and cooking, they pay dearly for 19th century technology like kerosene for lamps and paraffin candles.

By leapfrogging over pipelines and power transmission infrastructures, they will be able to have the energy we take for granted, but theirs will be cleaner than ours!  Solar & biomass will move them forward.

So, to the extent possible, I wholeheartedly endorse Kiva lenders funding loans and otherwise supporting projects that empower the working poor in ways that further the aims of sustainable development, "balancing the fulfillment of human needs with the protection of the natural environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future."

[Unilove]

I have found this thread very informative, intelligent, and thought-provoking.  I appreciate the time you all took to discuss these issues.

 

[waywardcats]

With this inherent conflict between high poverty and high population density on the one hand, with high biodiversity hotspots and major wilderness areas on the other, an environmental/lending strategy/policy that punishes the working poor also is unsustainable. 

Holistic sustainable development thinking goes beyond environmental issues alone.  "The field of sustainable development can be conceptually divided into four general dimensions: social, economic, environmental and institutional. The first three dimensions address key principles of sustainability, while the final dimension addresses key institutional policy and capacity issues."


As Kiva lenders, I don't believe boycotting certain types of loans (e.g., selling charcoal) has any strategic impact because every listing gets funded.  That's just the way it is.  On a personal level, I also believe it's fine to make choices about what we do and do not support.  For example, as a vegetarian, I do that all the time by keeping the impact on animals in mind every time I consider a loan.

Thanks for the clarification Richard.

I agree wholeheartedly with all of your points. 

In the end I think it is best for Kiva to allow lenders to make their own choices about what loans they would land would not like to fund, and not limit lenders according to any particular criteria.  If in the future certain loans do begin to go unfunded then I think perhaps it will be time for Kiva to rethink their strategy.  For now, I think that poverty is a large enough issue that Kiva should offer as many alternatives as possible to those who wish to fight against poverty.

-Kerry-