Gloucestershire-based Green Fuels Ltd has been awarded a $100,000 (£78,300) grant in recognition of the work it is doing to address the immediate and long-term challenges of the coronavirus pandemic in India.

The grant is designed to support the impact of the work Green Fuels, based in Berkeley, is doing as a global producer of sustainable transport fuels, as reported by Business & Innovation Magazine.

The Unreasonable Impact Covid-19 Response initiative was launched by Barclays and Unreasonable Group earlier this year and has already supported 10 companies that have made changes to their businesses to combat the challenges of Covid-19.

Green Fuels was chosen for the work it is doing in partnership with the waste management sector in Mumbai to develop safe, reliable collection systems for food waste, suitable for use in developing countries in (or emerging from) Covid-19 lockdown.

Green Fuels CEO James Hygate, said: "This project is important because existing collection systems are incompatible with social distancing, lockdowns or curfews, as they involve many 'empty' journeys, extensive contact between individuals, cash transactions and use of ad hoc containers that are not disinfectable and carry risk of virus transmission.

"The positive impact of our efforts will be huge; the abandonment of collection systems during the outbreak raises the risk of waste accumulation, vermin, food contamination and secondary disease outbreaks. In the case of waste cooking oil, which Green Fuels collects for refining into biodiesel, the specific threat is that oil will be retained in the human food chain after it has become toxic through repeated use.

"We're testing software and hardware, including a mobile app, mobile payments and 'smart collection' hardware, that go beyond the state of the art in hygiene, supply chain optimisation and traceability.

"After optimisation, we plan to implement this next-generation collection technology in several markets in the Gulf and South Asia in the coming months."

James Hygate will join the other businesses which have received a grant at a virtual event, The Unreasonable Impact COVID19 Response Exclusive Summit, created with Barclays tomorrow (29th September), where he will have a chance to share his work with a global audience.

The Unreasonable Impact project sets out to offer advice, expertise and support to businesses to that they can quickly increase the scale san impact of their businesses. Green Fuels was selected for its 'ingenious approach' to a challenge which sounds impossible.

Green Fuels is a pioneer in renewable fuels and has supplied biofuel equipment, with a total capacity of more than 420 million litres a year, to customers in nearly 90 countries.