Green Options

GE and coal power plant operator Shenhua Group are among three pairs of companies who have inked deals to create joint ventures to build cleaner coal technology plants in China.

The $150 million joint venture will be shared between the two biggest carbon emitters in the world under a low carbon energy initiative agreed to this month between President Obama and President Hu Jintao of China, as part of a deal to reduce carbon emissions.

Grameen and its managing director (Nobel Peace Prize-winner) Muhammad Yunus, known for the Grameen Bank, recently launched a new partnership with German conglomerate BASF to create a joint social business venture called BASF Grameen Ltd., to be based in Bangladesh. BASF Grameen Ltd. is being modeled as a “social business”, whose purpose will be to improve the health and provide related business opportunities for poor members of Bangladeshi society (reminiscent of the base of the pyramid framework) through the distribution of dietary supplement sachets and impregnated mosquito nets.

In an effort to tackle Pakistan’s growing energy shortage, representatives of the burgeoning Chinese solar industry have offered to cooperate with the country on a high profile partnership to manufacture solar energy equipment.