Prāna is a partnership with the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) of India, The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and Auroville Consulting.

The Prāna project is being developed by Tabreed in India in partnership with the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) of India, UNEP and Auroville Consulting and seeks to demonstrate the potential for integrated market linked and localised cold chain services, with a focus on the agricultural and vaccine supply chain in Villupuram District, Tamil Nadu, India.

The inspiration for this project is the ancient Indian concept of ‘Prāṇa’, which is the creative energy that sustains all life forms on earth. The idea is to connect water, energy, land use and livelihood improvement (WELL) by developing a sustainable rural cold chain. The project will have innovative technological features to help increase the circularity in use of resources, with the aim for a net-zero carbon, net-zero water use, zero waste and a net energy surplus cold chain packhouse that can contribute to a more resilient local power grid. The benefits could potentially boost new rural livelihood initiatives such as agrivoltaics, mushroom cultivation and aquaponics and promote important agricultural innovations in drought-threatened areas, such as precision irrigation.

This project will explore possibilities to extend the cold infrastructure for other end uses like vaccine storage, access to refrigeration for local workers and a cooled village community centre. The business model will be designed as a participatory model with farmers and Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs), and be developed to demonstrate commercial viability of a sustainable and circular model to deliver high-quality cold chain services that can boost farmer incomes and strengthen livelihoods of the rural community.