In April of 2012, Ethical Ideas Consulting embarked on a journey with the Grenada Hotel and Tourism Association to address the major challenge of energy in the small island state of Grenada. Ethical Ideas started the campaign by facilitating agreement among members for an “Earth Day Declaration” that articulated the following:
Desire: Reduce Energy Costs
The Result: Grenada’s Hotels now have the opportunity to invest in 100kw renewable energy systems with net metering and a set price of XCD $0.54 cents per kilowatt hour.
Prior to the Campaign: Hotels could invest in renewable energy systems, but they had to sell 100% of the energy produced to the utility and buy it back with more than a 100% mark-up in cost.
Desire: Liberalize renewable energy, regulated by the Eastern Caribbean Electricity Regulatory Authority (ECERA).
The Result: Renewable energy has been liberalized through the use of ‘special purpose vehicles’ which are companies that are set up for a specific purpose (in this case it would be producing renewable energy). The new energy framework will be regulated by ECERA.
In addition to the lobby with the Government and GRENLEC, Ethical Ideas led the appeal on behalf of the Tourism Sector to have the Clinton Foundation come to Grenada. In addition to giving my most passionate elevator pitch ever to one of President Clinton’s Aides, several project outlines that have been developed for several Ethical Ideas clients were submitted to the Foundation to illustrate the sustainable potential of this small island state. Check them out, the Foundation is a GREAT organization: http://www.clintonfoundation.org/
The Minister of Finance informed the audience at the consultation for the New Energy Framework, that a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been signed between Grenada and the Foundation. Negotiations of this type take place at the highest levels, and details have not yet been shared with any non-state actors.
The SIDSDock Proposal will hopefully be reviewed in April, and if that happens, the Sector should benefit from some grant/soft loan support for Energy Audits and retrofits. This will be great because it can yield 50% reductions in energy consumption.
All of this helps the Hotel Sector reach their goal to become the first zero carbon hotel sector in the Caribbean. Ethical Ideas is very pleased that the exhaustive lobby (captured in previous posts on this blog) has been successful and that all the players who dedicated themselves to making their desires heard have been rewarded. Politically motivated detractors might claim that realizing every single lobby point is luck – but in my experience – luck isn’t that thorough.
I wish I could thank everyone that helped on this campaign personally, but naming names on this small island state is a much bigger political act than anyone in a large country could imagine, and an election is on. So I will have to figure out how recognize people's efforts without blowing up a sand storm in the process. It may have to stand for now recognize the obvious fact that the nature of lobbying requires the input of others so there's a long list of people to be Thanked.
The spin off effects of leading the hotel sector to become the first zero carbon industry in the Caribbean will provide Granada a competitive social and economic advantage for other established and fledging industries. This is a first step that will reap rewards for more than the eco-tourism tourism industry but could provide a model for the industrial and residential sector.
ReplyDeleteGranada has the opportunity to lead the way and reap the benefits for providing innovative solutions that provide a viable and sustainable future to its residents.
Great work. An inspiration to other small island states.