The Problem

Dirty air sickens and kills, causing uncounted millions of cases of asthma, chronic and acute respiratory disease and hundreds of thousands of premature deaths every year. The human toll is staggering, and the economic cost enormous. For example, the World Bank estimates that in the four largest cities in the Philippines alone, the costs of air pollution are at least a half billion dollars a year. Across Asia, then, many billions of dollars are annually lost in income, shortened lives and stunted prospects. Dirty air is not only a personal killer, but an also anchor dragging down rates of economic growth through loss of productivity. This pollution is man-made, and much of it comes from the exhaust pipes of the 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines that power the two and three wheeled vehicles variously called autorickshaws, tricycles or tuk-tuks.

After decades of minimal success addressing urban air pollution through public sector action alone, CEI fundamentally changes how to solve the problem of mobile source pollution. Polluting motorcycles are the sole means of economic support and/or transportation for millions of poor people, and governments are politically and ethically disinclined to pass new regulations – or enforce those already on the books – that destroy livelihoods of the poor. CEI changes the political and economic calculus by creating ‘shared value’ – making a profit while delivering significant environmental and health benefits to its customers and to society at large without government subsidy.