what makes us tick

Clean Energy Franchise Update


This week, EarthSpark officially opens its first clean energy store. The store, based in Les Anglais, will sell clean and efficient energy products, impacting an area of over 50,000 inhabitants. We will also begin our preliminary marketing activities, placing advertisements on the radio, and meeting with groups like farmers’ associations to invite them to the store. EarthSpark and COREA, the local community organization in charge of store operations, will make visits to local manufacturers and distributers of clean and efficient energy products in order to make inventory purchases that will supplement the solar energy systems already en route to the store.

The store will carry solar power electricity products, such as solar lamps, phone chargers, and home systems, and efficient cooking stoves. Additionally, the store will offer low-tech, high-impact manufacturing equipment for farmer-entrepreneurs, including special presses that transform agricultural waste into “charbon alternatif briquettes,” a direct substitute for wood-based charcoal for cook stoves. Farmers can use the presses to generate supplementary income by selling briquettes. Because wood-based charcoal accounts for the greatest amount of energy used in Haiti and is the main cause of deforestation, increased use of “charbon alternatif briquettes” will contribute to Haiti’s sustainable development by curtailing the strain on the country’s few remaining forests. Check out the video below to see how charbon alternatif briquettes are made.



The Les Anglais store is the vanguard of the EarthSpark franchise model, which aims to support local entrepreneurs by providing technical assistance, business administration guidance, start-up capital, and inventory loans. By facilitating procurement from local and international suppliers and opening access to micro-credit loans for consumers, EarthSpark is enabling local entrepreneurs to offer compelling alternatives to kerosene lamps, inefficient charcoal stoves, and small-scale diesel generators.

We will demonstrate the viability of the store model over the course of the year, and are already beginning to plan for the development of two more stores in other parts of the country. Your continued support helps make this work possible. Please join us in our efforts to bring a more sustainable, efficient, and cleaner energy economy to the people of Haiti.