One Earth Designs
Our Story
One Earth Designs found its beginnings in a humble home in the Himalayas. Since then, we’ve grown to have customers in more than 60 countries and to receive the fourth highest global impact rating ever awarded.
While a student in college in 2007, I traveled to the Himalayan Plateau to study climate change. As a chemistry enthusiast, I wore air quality monitors on my body as I traveled across China. I thought that the pollution was terrible until I arrived on the Himalayan Plateau. A local family invited me into their home. We measured the air with my monitors and found that the air this family was breathing was 10 times worse than what I measured in Beijing. These people were routinely exposed to pollution levels that would require hospitalization in the USA.
The results shocked me. I discovered that smoke from indoor stoves was the biggest killer of children under 5. Each year, 4 million people die from exposure to smoke from their stoves. So I decided to apply my love for chemistry to solve this complex global health problem.
Pollution from household stoves is linked to fuel scarcity. Deforestation is so extensive that the government outlawed cutting wood for domestic fuel use. Since people lack other fuel options, women spend hours every day collecting wood and dung. Girls stayed home from school to collect fuel.
The Power of the Sun
It was actually a village leader who suggested using the sun to address the massive fuel scarcity issue faced by his community. In a single hour, enough sunlight reaches Earth to power all human activity for an entire year!
Over many years, we worked with hundreds of villagers to design, build, and test 50+ prototypes of solar cookers. The solution had to meet a challenging list of requirements. It had to be extremely efficient and cook food that tasted good. Our team achieved major breakthroughs in design and materials. We developed a user interface that protects users’ eyes from UV radiation, designed a system robust yet easy to disassemble for transport, and developed a new material that harnesses solar energy with 7 times higher efficiency than your average solar panel. With SolSource Solar Stove, we created a stove that helped alleviate several major issues; air pollution, fuel scarcity. We became confident in SolSource’s social and environmental impact when a family told us that by using SolSource, they saved (32-64 USD) in monthly fuel costs. Word about SolSource spread fast in the villages.
“SolSource Solar Cooker is the ultimate solar cooker. Its innovative design allows you to capture sunlight to grill, pan fry, slow-cook and boil water. You can enjoy inexhaustible supply of clean energy cooking at home. SolSource is easy-to-use, cooks a meal in 10 minutes. “
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Catlin (founder) working with the locals.