Under the blazing sun of Southern India, Hemant Lamba and his team at the international township of Auroville have been working to bring affordable solar panels to 80,000 people across the region. This summer they were awarded the Ashden Award’, known globally as the Green Oscars’ for their pioneering enterprise in helping this vast country unlock its huge potential for solar power. In the words of one of the judges: “These are the guys who make solar happen.”

Each year the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy reward outstanding renewable energy projects in rural areas of the developing world. This year Asian projects swept up all the prizes. The Aga Khan Foundation won the Award for Light for harnessing the power of mountain streams to bring clean, cheap electricity to over 17,000 households in the high valleys of the Hindu Kush. In Pakistan, the lives of women from the Changa Manga Forest have been transformed by a simple but revolutionary cooking stove. It has improved their health and their income, whilst curbing reliance on protected forest area, earning Maisoon Zamir the Ashden Award for Food. The Climate Care Award was given to India’s Prakratik Society for its role in offsetting carbon emissions, providing villages in Rajasthan with a greener alternative to firewood in the form of biogas. Innovative, small-scale projects like these are at the forefront, tackling climate change and helping to build a more sustainable way of life.

As rural communities face the increasing challenges of global warming, deforestation and pollution, the case for renewable energy gets ever stronger. The Awards recognise the responsibility that industrialised countries have, as the main contributors of man-made greenhouse gases, to rethink the way they use energy.

The awards were presented by environmentalist, Sir David Attenborough to a packed house at the Royal Geo-graphical Society in London in June. HRH The Prince of Wales commented that he felt: “enormously encouraged to meet these remarkable people who are all making a substantial impact in alleviating poverty and helping protect our fragile environment, both at the local and global level.”