Helping Out, Kiva Green Style!

Hey guys!

So here's a little update from the world of Kiva, my micro-loan website of choice. If you're like me, when you loan out your $25, you want it to go to someone who will not only stimulate his or her local economy, but also (if they can) help out his or her local environment.

Unfortunately, Kiva does not have a lot of eco-friendly loans on its website often (it can be expensive to go green sometimes). However, here to help is the Kiva team in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia! Now, if you're like me, you've never hear of Ulaanbaatar, and you think I have a weird twitch that's making me put extra A's in everything. Not true! It's along about the same latitude as the Washington/Canadian border, but it's a lot colder. I'm talking -30 degrees. Also, it really does have 5 A's in its name. What up with that?

Because of this, the people living there need a lot of heat, but heating their homes has turned Ulaanbaatar into one of the most polluted villages in the world (or at least in Mongolia). Here to help are the Eco Products team of XacBank in Mongolia. They produce all kinds of alternative heating methods that help out the planet and lower heating costs. Hooray! Plus, everything is made locally in Mongolia, so it still spurs their economy.

Apparently, they mainly post these types of loans in the Fall, so we may have to wait a while to get a green loan going, but stay on the lookout!

You can read all about Ulaanaatar and Eco Products' solutions here.