SWITCH-Asia

The Challenge

The Sri Lankan tourism industry is booming with number of tourists increasing every year. Hotel and restaurant facilities need to deal with increasing amount of waste and growing energy costs. Biogas production is a sustainable win-win solution to manage their waste while contributing to their energy needs and reducing energy costs. However, development of biogas technology requires strong technical capacity of biogas units’ constructors. The lack of after-sale service and maintenance of biogas units as well as lack of SME appropriate entrepreneurial capacities has hampered sustainability of past projects.

The Objectives

The project aims to create an enabling environment for a largescale dissemination of biogas technology for SMEs in tourism industry and households. To achieve it, the project targets the demand side as well as the supply side by mobilising the manufacture and construction private sector, micro finance institutions (MFIs), tourism industry and the society as a whole.

The Way Forward

• Conducting awareness workshops to promote the biogas technology;
• Providing capacity building to SMEs in construction and manufacturing sector;
• Designing and developing of accreditation scheme for masons and designers of biogas units;
• Developing a quality insurance and after sale services for biogas unit maintenance;
• Facilitating access to micro finance institutions (MFIs) and to “green” finance for SMEs;
• Linking MFIs with SMEs to broaden and facilitate investment possibilities;
• Strengthening the institutional framework by establishing an umbrella institution the Sri Lanka National Biogas Program (SLNBP).