Clean & improved cookstoves in Kenya

The why? The scale of the need

More than 2.5 billion people worldwide still do not have access to clean cooking ; approximately 30% of global greenhouse emissions from forest degradation are derived from woodfuel harvest, and, in total, emissions from nonrenewable wood fuels for cooking amount to 1 GtCO2  per year, about 2% of global emissions . These statistics demonstrate the magnitude of a small, individual activity and its contribution to the larger-scale worsening of the climate crisis. 

Our proprietary greenledger.earth platform ensures robust data trails and enables long term contract value including refinancing, tracking impact and demonstrating value created by aggregating across community wide transition. Our GL Vault and GL Archive creates immutable contract and data tracking architecture to underpin such initiatives at global scale.

Where was the pilot?

In Kenya, Kisumu County, on Lake Victoria. While clean cookstoves have been introduced to the area, still 79% of households do not use them. The World Health Organisation estimates that about 14,300 Kenyans die annually from conditions linked to indoor air pollution – most of which is caused by cooking and heating sources. Traditional cooking practices also produce greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions stem from two sources. First, unsustainable harvesting of fuel drives forest degradation and prevents reforestation. Second, burning fuels during the cooking process emits carbon dioxide, methane, and other pollutants.

What is the impact?

With households switching to premium clean cooking the expected benefits are

- Health: well established benefits to the household based on scientific studies on cooking stoves and methods, reducing hospitalizations, respiratory problems and also fewer deaths

- Emissions: based on scientific studies with cookstoves, with people switching from open-fire to clean cookstoves, Carbon emissions into the air from the open fuel burning are reduced. Over the mean lifespan of the stove of over 5 years, this results in substantial improvement in emissions at scale.

- Time-saving: Hours spent gathering wood daily as opposed to buying briquettes typically happens once a week and takes 1 hour.

What is so unique about this approach?

While there are dozens of other carbon credit cookstove projects across the world, there is none that combine all these aspects:

- High percentage of carbon credit proceeds go to local economy

- Transparency: data, including outcome and impact data available through dashboard in near real-time. Green People & TrueFootprint platforms ensure verification of the project over its life and credibility of the credits by creating an auditable, verifiable ledger.

Why will this work?

- Households: people will want to switch to clean cooking because it is time-saving and healthier. Quite a few will like the environmental benefits as well. 

- Manufacturers: our bulk order helps make running their business more predictable. They will maintain a healthy margin to keep their business sustainable

- Partners: dedicated to the community, we ensure their commission is above market rates so they can blossom and grow their local social enterprise. They have no upfront costs. To encourage them doing a good job maintaining the project, we pay them not just for sales but also partly for sustained app usage. These are not random businesses but selected from our own network built up over decades of development work

- Carbon credit buyers: not just any carbon credits good for the environment but credits that have human benefits: health, time-saving

Beginning of a journey

This is a small scale project that is the beginning of our journey towards clean cooking across Africa and Asia.

*Upcoming Project*- Please get in touch through the contacts and appointments page.