Climate finance has no shortage of ambition, but very few models actually let everyday people take part in building the solution. Lassor Feasley is changing that. The co-founder and CEO of Renewables.org has built a platform that allows individuals to fund real solar projects in under-electrified regions such as East Africa and India through no-interest, repayable loans. Created by early members of the Kiva founding team, Renewables.org blends fintech mechanics with climate impact, prioritising transparency, measurable carbon outcomes, and user experience over vague offsets. In this exclusive interview with TechBullion, Feasley explains why democratised solar finance could be the missing catalyst in the global clean-energy transition.
Please tell us a little more about yourself?.
I’m Lassor Feasley, the CEO and cofounder of Renewables.org, the nonprofit that makes it possible for anyone to help fund solar projects in emerging markets, and get paid back over five years for as little as $25.
My background is in product design and entrepreneurship. Before entering renewable energy finance, I worked in design consulting, where I helped large organizations understand their customers and translate those insights into product strategy. That experience—using design to make complex systems intuitive—has shaped everything I do.
I’ve always drawn inspiration from Apple’s ability to combine design, technology, and business into something clear and compelling. I try to bring that same level of intentionality to Renewables.org.
A core challenge in this space is that institutional finance and consumer behavior rarely align. Institutions need structure, predictability, and financial rigor; consumers want experiences that are simple, engaging, and inspiring. My role is to bridge those worlds with design and technology so that meaningful climate finance becomes accessible to anyone.
I was recruited into this work by Premal Shah, cofounder of Kiva.org. Kiva helped pioneer online crowdfunding and mobilized billions for anti-poverty efforts. Premal’s approach—leveraging design, technology, and community to unlock new capital—continues to influence how we build at Renewables.org. I’m proud that our work carries forward that lineage.
What is most broken in climate finance today, and how does your model tackle those flaws?
One of the biggest failures in climate finance today is that capital flows toward the safest, not the most impactful, opportunities. U.S. solar projects already have access to extremely cheap financing, and the grid is relatively clean, compared to other areas of the world. That means the marginal impact of another dollar invested in American solar is surprisingly low.
In the Global South, the math is completely different. Power grids are heavily dependent on coal and diesel, construction costs are lower, projects break ground more quickly, and proximity to the equator increases energy output. The result is that every dollar invested in solar in markets like India or Africa produces dramatically more carbon reduction.
Our estimate is that a dollar deployed in these regions creates over five times more climate impact than that same dollar invested in the U.S. Yet these are the markets the global investment community consistently overlooks. Investors perceive them as untested, and higher-return conventional investments often crowd out sustainable alternatives.
When I speak with solar developers in these regions, they all say the same thing: raising capital is their biggest barrier. Meanwhile, their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe spend almost no time fundraising because capital is abundant.
Renewables.org is designed to change that dynamic. By enabling individuals to directly finance high-impact solar projects in emerging markets, we channel capital to the places where it matters most. Just as Kiva proved microfinance could scale into a global industry, we aim to demonstrate that climate-positive solar finance in the Global South is both investable and transformative. Our goal is not only to deploy capital, but also to help local developers build the track records that unlock institutional investment at scale.
Why does project-level transparency matter for rebuilding trust in consumer climate action?
Renewables.org has seen sustained interest from organizations that historically purchase carbon offsets but now view that industry with skepticism. A few bad actors pursued growth using ethically questionable sales and marketing tactics, which stigmatized the entire sector. We recently announced a partnership with the advocacy group Climate Action Now to replace offsets in their offering, largely because their users had begun questioning the efficacy of traditional offset products.
Transparency is a core part of our appeal. Funds raised through carbon offsets often go into broad portfolios—advocacy, education, tree planting, sustainability research—which can be difficult to track, and some would argue that opacity is intentional. When you invest through Renewables.org, your money does exactly one thing: it’s lent to solar developers in the Global South to build high-impact solar projects.
Another key part of our model is that we fully repay our investors—without interest—through monthly installments over five years. Most of our users never intend to withdraw; roughly 95% of repayments are reinvested into additional solar on the platform. The availability of these repayments functions as a form of “proof of impact,” because those funds come directly from the sale of carbon-free electricity in emerging markets.
We feature images of the solar projects that generate repayments, as well as production data generated by individual facilities when possible. In other words, you don’t need to place the same level of blind trust in us that you would in a traditional offset provider. You can verify impact simply by seeing repayment flow back into your account each month.
What makes solar in the Global South deliver far greater carbon impact per pound invested?
It really comes down to three big reasons — and together, they make investing in solar in the Global South one of the most effective things you can do for the planet.
- First, the energy grids in regions across India and Africa are often powered by coal and diesel. That means every solar panel installed there replaces a much dirtier source of electricity than it would in the U.S. or Europe.
- Second, these regions tend to receive more sun year-round. More sunshine means each solar panel produces more clean energy, which adds up to a bigger environmental return on investment.
- Third, it’s a lot cheaper to build solar in the Global South, often by a factor of three or more. In other words, you build more solar modules for less money.
When you put all of that together, we’ve found that solar projects in the Global South prevent about five times more carbon emissions per dollar than similar projects in developed countries. It’s a huge opportunity — not just to cut emissions, but to do it where it matters most and where it hasn’t been financially possible until now.
All of the calculations and analysis on the impact of each of our solar projects are available in a public spreadsheet on our website.
Why do major financiers avoid high-impact markets, and how can small investors fill the gap?
It’s a paradox: the places where solar can have the greatest impact, both environmentally and economically, are often the places that get the least investment. Big financial institutions tend to avoid markets like sub-Saharan Africa or parts of South Asia because they see them as too risky, too complex, or just not profitable enough at the scale they’re used to working at.
These are markets perceived to have undeveloped infrastructure, regulatory uncertainty, currency risk, and smaller deal sizes — and which deters both philanthropic and private financiers.
But that’s where everyday investors can make a difference. Our model is designed to create the maximum climate impact per dollar invested possible. Our investors demand climate impact, not a high internal rate of return, meaning we can channel 100% funds into projects that might have struggled to attract investment otherwise.
We work with developers to ensure the projects we help fund are economic – for example, by ensuring that currency risk is hedged against where prudent and that power purchasers are financially stable, but our concessionary model allows us to go to high impact regions where others won’t.
Are we nearing an inflection point for consumer climate investing, and where does your model fit?
I don’t think we’ve hit the inflection point yet. Several solar crowdfunding platforms have launched and stalled over the past decade, though a new generation is beginning to find traction. As a nonprofit, Renewables.org can operate more efficiently than for-profit predecessors, and our focus on Global South impact—rather than financial return—has resonated with a large base of mission-driven users.
Over the past five years, retail investing has exploded, driven by crypto, prediction markets, and consumer-first brokerages like Robinhood. Yet this resurgence hasn’t produced many iconic climate investment products. ESG funds and impact-themed vehicles have seen modest tailwinds, but nothing that captures the imagination of everyday investors.
I believe that will change. If we stay committed to building an exceptional user experience, we’ll benefit as the market matures. The backlash against impact investing—some deserved, much of it political—will eventually normalize. Markets tend to correct, and public sentiment will move back toward pragmatism.
At the same time, climate change will intensify year after year. As extreme events become more visible and unavoidable, individuals will look for ways to contribute, especially when institutions act too slowly. Climate may have fallen out of fashion in the short term, but the underlying problem isn’t cyclical. It worsens annually, and the demand for meaningful, accessible climate action will only grow.
Renewables.org is built for that moment: a simple, transparent way for everyday people to directly fund high-impact solar where it matters most.
How can distributed solar reshape economic prospects for under-electrified communities?
When people think about solar in the Global South, they often picture individual households getting access to electricity for the first time. In informal settlements or rural areas, affordable solar can power essentials like lights, fridges, washing machines, or phone chargers. That kind of access changes lives and opens doors to education, health, and participation in the broader economy. We absolutely support that work — but it’s not where Renewables.org focuses.
Our mission is to bring distributed solar to commercial sites — factories, universities, warehouses. These are often overlooked when it comes to clean energy funding in emerging markets, but theyare the largest energy users.
By helping them switch to solar, we’re not just expanding access, we’re replacing dirty power with clean power and creating real climate impact. These commercial projects benefit local communities in meaningful ways. Solar energy reduces not only CO₂ emissions but also air pollution, a major public health issue in many regions. It’s also more reliable than many local grids, especially when paired with batteries, which helps businesses stay productive and keeps people employed. And since solar is usually cheaper than grid power, it makes those businesses more competitive, which fuels local economic growth.
So while we’re not installing panels on rooftops of individual homes, the kind of solar we’re funding plays a huge role in making communities cleaner, healthier, and more economically resilient.
What does it mean to run a climate non-profit with a tech mindset around data and user experience?
Running a climate nonprofit with a tech mindset means treating data and user experience as core to the mission, not as supporting features. My background is in product design, and one of the first things that struck me is how much people love checking the monitoring apps that come with rooftop solar. They watch their avoided carbon, see their panels outperform on a sunny afternoon, screenshot it, and share it with friends. It creates a daily sense of agency.
But those apps lack a next step. Once you’ve admired your data, there’s nothing more you can do—no way to expand your impact, no way to take action beyond your roof.
Before Renewables.org, I had been exploring how to channel that emotional engagement into something more powerful: a model where anyone who loves solar—whether or not they have panels—could directly fund more of it. That’s when my cofounder, Premal Shah, reached out about building this as a nonprofit.
Our goal is for Renewables.org to feel as intuitive and tactile as owning panels yourself. User experience isn’t a layer we add after the fact, it’s the engine that makes the model work. When people feel ownership over both their investment and their impact, they stay engaged and reinvest again and again. This is the experience of Kiva.org – and we are already starting to see it take shape with Renewables.org.
We’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible when design, data, and climate finance work together.
How do you design a platform that genuinely democratises climate investing for everyday people?
To truly democratize climate investing, you have to start with simplicity. Most solar investments are designed for institutional investors, not individuals. They come with complex tax structures, accreditation requirements, and risk models that make them inaccessible to the average person—even those who are highly motivated to support climate action.
We designed Renewables.org to remove that friction. Working closely with a solar developer, we created an investment structure that everyday users can understand immediately. When you lend on Renewables.org, repayments begin 30 days after your investment. Each monthly payment is 1/60th of your principal and continues for five years, at which point you’re fully repaid. Every month, you choose whether to reinvest those funds into more solar or withdraw them.
Our role as a financial intermediary is to bridge the needs of developers and the expectations of consumers. That requires designing an investment simple enough for a broad audience, yet robust enough to reliably finance high-impact solar projects in the Global South. If you can get that balance right, you unlock participation from people who never imagined they could directly fund climate infrastructure.
For investors interested in your project, how can they start investing and what innovations will most accelerate distributed solar growth across emerging markets next decade?
Getting started is simple: anyone can create an account at Renewables.org, choose a project, and lend as little as $25. The entire process takes just a few minutes, and our team is always available to walk new users through how it works.
When I think about the innovations that will drive the next wave of distributed solar in the Global South, the first thing I’d emphasize is that breakthroughs aren’t the bottleneck. The technology to decarbonize the grid already exists, and we can look to more mature markets to see the trajectory. Battery storage is the clearest frontier—highly complementary to solar and increasingly cost-effective. In many markets, the economics already work.
What sets emerging markets apart is that they don’t face the same entrenched interests or legacy infrastructure that slow progress in the U.S. and Europe. Electricity demand is rising quickly as people gain access to modern amenities, which means these regions are building new systems rather than overhauling old ones. Fresh buildouts allow for cleaner, more flexible architectures from day one.
The pattern is familiar. In telecom, many countries skipped the landline era entirely and leapfrogged directly to mobile networks. I believe distributed solar—paired with storage—will create a similar leapfrog moment in energy. It’s modular, fast to deploy, resilient, and well suited to communities that have historically been underserved by central utilities.
People everywhere deserve a life of dignity, and the challenge is ensuring that rising prosperity doesn’t come at the expense of the planet. My hope is that Renewables.org can play a meaningful role in that transition by channeling capital to advance sustainable development.
