Leapfrog Alliance grows, reaching 15 nonprofit supporters
With the most recent addition of EKOenergy, the Leapfrog Alliance now includes 15 nonprofit supporter organizations
The Leapfrog Alliance is an initiative representing a nonprofit “supporter” coalition that aims to build stronger incentives to drive increased corporate clean energy investment in unelectrified and underserved communities.
This coalition has grown since the Leapfrog Alliance launched earlier this year. After recently welcoming EKOenergy, which oversees an internationally recognized ecolabel that raises funds through corporate procurement to help finance new clean energy projects in low- and middle-income countries, this coalition now includes 15 nonprofit supporter organizations.
“We share the same objectives and goals,” said Steven Vanholme, Program Manager at EKOenergy. “Promoting ‘increased and dedicated corporate investment in clean energy projects benefiting unelectrified and underserved communities’ is an important aspect of our work. We would like to see international standards, such as the GHG Protocol, also support these important efforts by implementing targeted improvements that create stronger incentives for companies to support high-impact clean energy projects. For example, the often-forgotten Chapter 11 of the Scope 2 Guidance under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard encourages companies to do more and mentions the possibility of contributing funds for new project development. We hope that future Scope 2 Guidance will mention more explicitly that new projects can particularly be impactful when they benefit unelectrified and underserved communities.”
Barefoot College, which trains rural women as solar engineers, entrepreneurs and educators, and GROW, which empower underserved communities to access climate education, green jobs, and greater resiliency, have also joined the Leapfrog Alliance since the initial launch.
The Leapfrog Alliance calls for stronger incentives for companies to support clean energy access in the least-electrified communities by, for example, providing greater flexibility on standard “geographic matching” rules for corporate clean energy procurement and associated greenhouse gas accounting. To advance this goal, the Alliance is actively engaging in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol revision process, which will begin its next chapter this fall with technical working groups and extensive stakeholder engagement. This coalition will advance specific proposals in the coming months to revise and improve the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Corporate Standard so that this guidance drives increased and dedicated corporate investment in clean energy projects benefiting unelectrified and underserved communities. These proposals will use the latest research, such as this new study, and will be grounded in this coalition’s real-world implementation experience.
Photo credit: EKOenergy Ecolabel