Community Resource Efficiency Hub in Kerala’s Ernakulam to support 25 women-led coastal enterprises build climate-resilient business models

A Community Resource Efficiency hub in North Paravur supports 25 women MSME units with sustainable business models.

A Community Resource Efficiency (CRE) hub in North Paravur will be commissioned next week to help 25 women MSME units operating along the coastal panchayats of Ernakulam district in Kerala build a sustainable business model with built-in climate resilience.

The initiative, the first in Kerala to be funded by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) under its Smart Village project, will be executed with the support of Equinoct, a Kochi-based community-sourced modelling solution provider, and with the active collaboration with the not-for-profit organisations, the Resilient Destinations Foundation and Puthenvelikkara-based Community Resource Centre, a people’s initiative for creating a sustainable community.

A five-tonne capacity deep freezer, a 2-tonne capacity dryer, and two electric autorickshaws, all powered by solar energy, have been installed at the hub to help scale up enterprises, which are mostly into producing fish, agriculture, and dairy products. Converting them from enterprises without any definite model into sustainable ones run on green energy technologies remains at the heart of the project.

“The hub proposes to help these enterprises develop into professionally run businesses complete with a digital platform to leverage the scope of e-commerce to increase their market exposure. The entrepreneurs will be trained on maintaining accounts, tapping the benefits of bulk purchases, better branding and marketing of their products, etc. The goal is to enhance their livelihood capacity through a climate-resilient business model,” said C. Jayaraman, managing director of Equinoct.

Plans are also afoot to help evolve a green label for these products by highlighting how green energy technologies are deployed in their production and distribution, thus enhancing their market potential. The hub will also mediate to help the enterprises avail of short-term loans at low interest rates through tie-ups with various agencies, said K.G. Sreeja, project director.

Equinoct will serve as a technology partner of the hub to implement the project with the support of IEEE Smart Village. The hub, complete with its assets, will have to be handed over to a community-run non-profit organisation within a year. It could be an organisation made collectively of the 25 benefitting enterprises or a consortium of enterprises, the Resilient Destinations Foundation and CRC Puthenvelikkara, though it is yet to be finalised.

“There is an even bigger goal of developing it into a climate resilience hub which can help communities to build resilience to climate risks in the coastal region in the long run, provided there are enabling circumstances, institutional collaborations and government support, including funding,” said Mr. Jayaraman.