Citizens’ innovations and initiative

For nearly ten years, the ICDD (Innovation citoyenne et développement durable) association has been monitoring solutions to current issues which are simple, powerful, cheap, and devised by citizens using their own initiative. There are a number of examples: Jaouad Zemmouri created the TERRAO® procedure which extracts pollution from industrial smoke while simultaneously recovering the heat produced by the fumes. Alain Jean developed Rezo Pouce, a rural car-share scheme, launched without a budget in 2010 in the town of Moissac, which enabled people living in remote villages to become more mobile. The scheme has since been adopted by 2,000 other towns. ICDD has discovered a number of citizens’ initiatives, and discusses the amount of financial support possible in order to help these schemes reach their full potential.