ToughStuff at the Ashden Awards

The Ashden Awards are the world's leading green energy prize, and I'm hugely proud that ToughStuff is one of their 2011 international finalists.

The Ashden Awards honour projects and organisations that demonstrate excellence in the field of sustainable energy. Eight energy pioneers from the African continent, India and Pakistan make up Ashden's final international list for 2011 - you can read about them here (and check out the chat on twitter via the hashtag #ash2011).

ToughStuff, where I've been lucky enough to work via On Purpose for the past five months, produces solar energy solutions for the developing world. The company is commerically run, but mission driven: its purpose is to serve the energy needs of those 1.4 billion people - around a quarter of the world's population - who live without access to electricity. It manufactures and markets a range of low-cost and robust solar products, bringing the benefits of light, mobile phone charging and radio to off-grid communities. So far sales have benefitted around 740,000 people. But ToughStuff's ambition goes much further - to reach over 6.5 million households by 2015.

As an Ashden international finalist, ToughStuff is certainly keeping good company. The organisations on this year's list alone have saved over half a million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to the emissions of 90,000 UK homes. As Ashden says, they "prove that it is possible to meet the energey needs of the poor in a way that radically improves lives, drives economic growth [and] cuts CO2 emissions".

Awards are wonderful, and as far as I'm concerned great companies like ToughStuff deserve all the recognition they can get! But probably the most significant part of their value lies in the connections that well-established names such as Ashden can facilitate. Because, as Andrew Tanswell, ToughStuff's CEO said in his speech at the Ashden conference yesterday, 'You can have the very best product in the world, but if people don't know about it, and can't access it, then you haven't succeeded'. The Ashden conference and tonight's awards ceremony are 'part of a broader process that's designed to last' - one that I'm sure will support ToughStuff as it builds the momentum and partnerships necessary to achieve its inspiring target for 2015.