Treehuggers on the Web
                                                    by Paul Swider, Greenstar Corporation
     There is often an element of hypocrisy to environmentalism.
     Save for the extreme fringe who don their hand-woven hemp tunics to gather berries outside a lean-to in the forest, the simple act of modern living requires some compromises. Ideologically pure environmentalism seems incompatible with the achievement of important human, social and
economic goals.
     This is especially true in the developing world, where simple survival and expedience often require people to embrace "un-green" methods. Lacking the money to finance energy-efficient technologies, people in developing countries often have no choice but to run a diesel generator for power or overuse land to maximize today's harvest. Dams, factories and landfills may be yesterday's answer to the environmentally-awakening West, but they are still necessities for the bulk of the world's population.
     But not for everyone. Green technologies are on the upswing in the developing world and are becoming available to the most isolated of the world's poor, not as a donation but as a business proposition.
     Greenstar is a new company that delivers community development tools to the rural poor based entirely on solar energy. Greenstar places self-contained, solar-powered community centers in remote locations around the world, communities "off the grid" in terms of electricity, communications, business and development.
     These centers provide electricity, water purification, communications, education, health facilities and employment. They also act as ecommerce centers so residents of these far-flung communities can sell their wares worldwide over the Internet, especially "digital culture" products. These centers are not only sustainable, they actually generate income for communities while preserving traditional culture.
    Greenstar has such a site operating now in the village of Al-Kaabneh in the Palestinian Territories. In the first year of operation, the facility has surpassed expectations for technical performance. The
community has embraced the center and now operates it independently. Greenstar plans five more such centers in 2000, and 300 more in the next five.
     Such a complete package sounds too good to be true, but it's not really difficult. Solar technology has advanced to the point that it is useful, and cost-effective, virtually anywhere in the world. In northern climes, where solar radiation is lesser, photovoltaics actually work better in lower temperatures, which counterbalances, to some degree, the lower amount of direct sunlight. Annual available sunlight varies by no more than 20 percent from the equator to the Arctic circle, and extra batteries can easily compensate.
     The Greenstar power source (four kilowatts) can generate enough juice to operate a water purification unit for 2,200 people and a vaccine cooler for a health clinic. It can also power a video screen for teaching, run several computers and a satellite Internet connection, provide energy for a clinic and exterior and interior lighting for a school or community center.
     The Greenstar system is not designed to electrify every individual home in a village. It's focused on powering basic health, education, training, communication, culture and ecommerce services shared by an entire community, to jump-start development activities and sustain them through their initial painful steps. Greenstar is focused on the 2 billion rural people in the world who might otherwise never have electricity or telephones.
     Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Greenstar is that it does not operate in traditional donor mode. The entire Greenstar facility -- its installation, training, upkeep and operation -- are financed as a capital investment, with a business return provided by ecommerce revenues. Using the village's own unique, innate assets -- its traditional culture -- Greenstar helps the community develop a set of
digital products: music, art, literature, photography -- which can be represented as bits and bytes on a server. The sale of this "digital culture"  pays for the equipment, training, operation and return on
investment of the Greenstar facility.
     Digital products are important because they form an efficient, green fuel for ecommerce. They can be created anywhere, manufactured instantly in unlimited quantities at zero cost, and shipped free anywhere in the world; they don't go through customs, can't break, and can be sampled before purchase. Every product is a perfect image of the original; profit margin is virtually 100%. This allows a majority of the income to go back where it belongs -- to the creators, the owners, the people in the village.
     Greenstar's ideas are not a universal solution to clean development; they are not well-suited, for example, to urban sites. But the company shows that it is possible to improve life in the most difficult parts of the developing world without despoiling the environment, and to do it in a profitable business context.
    If Greenstar and others can harness the formidable engine of dot-com investment to the immense challenge of the developing world, the treehuggers could find a whole new set of resources -- and new allies.

Contact the author, Paul Swider: pswider@e-greenstar.com
Paul is a former Peace Corps volunteer, who has worked extensively in journalism, investment banking, and for agencies focused on international development.