June 2026 Photo of the Month: Celebrating World Environment Day
Our monthly photo series highlights the beauty and emotion in the lives of our clients around the world.
Celebrating our environment: Three snapshots of TechnoServe clients building sustainable livelihoods and climate resilient futures.
World Environment Day has been celebrated since 1972 as a global day to galvanize public awareness and action on pressing issues like plastic pollution, wildlife crime, and land restoration. The theme for this year is “Inspired by Nature. For Climate. For Our Future,” hosted by the Republic of Azerbaijan. #NowForClimate is calling on people all over the world to build climate resilient futures with collective solutions.
The photos selected for this month showcase the skills and knowledge that TechnoServe clients have embraced in order to ensure a healthier planet and brighter future for themselves and their communities.
As a global nonprofit focused on delivering business solutions to end poverty, we understand that a bright future for people depends on a healthy and thriving planet.
PHOTO 1: Recycling Trash (Peru)
In Apopa, El Salvador, Claudia “La Vaquerita” Alvarado isn’t just running a business. She’s rewriting what’s possible when entrepreneurship meets environmental action.
Claudia’s family recycling business, La Vaquerita, received a boost thanks to skills she learned from TechnoServe’s Impulsa Tu Empresa (ITE) program. She transformed it from a local collection center into a thriving engine for job creation, offering people in her community a path to decent income while tackling one of El Salvador’s most pressing challenges.
Nearly one in four pieces of trash in El Salvador ends up on streets, in rivers, or scattered across nature. Businesses like La Vaquerita are part of a homegrown solution: keeping materials in circulation, reducing what hits the landfill, and creating jobs in the process.
Photo 2: Regenerative Coffee (Kenya)
Fredrick Wakamani, a coffee farmer from Kiamariga, Kenya, is all smiles as he shows his ripe coffee cherries. As climate change brings harsher, more unpredictable conditions, smallholder coffee farmers like Fredrick are learning regenerative practices that keep soil healthy, conserve moisture, and reduce erosion. The result? Better coffee, fairer prices, and a healthier planet. And the impact can be tremendous. TechnoServe’s Regenerative Coffee Investment Case shows that scaling these practices could boost farmer incomes by 62%, increase coffee exports by 30%, and cut 3.5 million tons of CO₂e in emissions annually — all while restoring nature and strengthening local economies.
Read more about regenerative coffee.
Photo 3: Healthier Crops (India)
Chandru Hotteppanavar, a maize farmer in Karnataka, India, is spraying biofertilizer from his own biodigester. It’s a small act that represents a big shift in how farming can work with nature. Karnataka is one of India’s most climate-vulnerable states. Years of chemical overuse have degraded its soil, rainfall has grown unpredictable, and 60% of the region is drought-prone. For 600 million smallholder farmers worldwide, these aren’t distant threats. They’re daily reality. But Chandru is proof that change is possible. After adopting regenerative practices through TechnoServe’s Project Srishti, the results spoke for themselves: “The crop on which we sprayed Jeevamrutha [the biofertiliser] has 40 to 45 roots, whereas the conventional maize crop only has 19 to 20 roots.” Since then, he’s invested in intercropping and his own biodigester. When farmers have the right tools and knowledge, sustainability and prosperity grow together.
Read Chandru’s story in our annual report.
From the recycling centers of El Salvador to the coffee farms of Kenya and the maize fields of India, these stories share a common thread: when people are equipped with the right skills, knowledge, and support, they become powerful agents of environmental change and architects for their own bright future.