Cookstoves

Nearly half the world’s population still cooks on inefficient, dangerous, and polluting 3-stone open fires. Insulated and enclosed cookstoves reduce the amount of fuel used by up to 50%, cutting carbon emissions, while dramatically improving air quality and safety.

The benefits of fuel-efficient stoves include:

Saving the family money and time spent buying or collecting charcoal or firewood.
Producing less smoke – leading to better indoor air quality and a lower incidence of smoke inhalation-related diseases – lungs and eyes are particularly at risk.
Increased safety for children – less risk of burns from falling against a stove compared to falling into an open fire.
Improving safety for women and children – gathering firewood is a task that often falls to women and children, and as the amount of firewood available locally declines they have to travel further from home, placing themselves in danger.
Reducing deforestation rates in the local area – less demand for firewood and charcoal means forested areas have more chance to recover and regrow.

Designing a project

To quantify the carbon emissions savings from providing cookstoves in a community, it is necessary to establish what the “business as usual” or “before we started” situation is. We do this by using a baseline survey of a representative sample of the community that will be receiving the cookstoves.

Traditional 3-stone fire - Uganda

Baseline survey for cookstoves - Uganda

Weighing daily wood - Uganda

Baseline

The baseline survey is key to both the success and viability of a project. To claim emissions reductions, we need to be able to prove that the introduction of a cookstove will lead to households using less wood or charcoal, and consequently reducing their carbon emissions.

Once we identify a project area, we must learn about the types and quantities of fuel community members use.

We gather information about fuel usage by asking households to show how much wood they typically use in a day or week for all of their household needs. The surveyor uses a portable scale to weigh the fuel. The surveyor knows or comes from the community they are working in and they can “sanity check” the information.

Once we have data about household size and fuel usage, we estimate the average carbon emissions savings from installing a cookstove. If we know the expected carbon savings over the lifetime of a cookstove (usually about five years), and the cost of construction, training, and ongoing support, we can see whether we have a viable carbon offset project.

Monitoring

The most important part of any project is the people who are involved. The households that receive a cookstove need to understand the purpose of the project and to be committed to using the cookstove for their cooking. The project partner needs to be committed to the people in the communities they are working with and able to respond to the particular demands of a carbon offsetting project. One of the key demands is time – our carbon calculations assume that the cookstoves will last for at least five years. So the project partner needs to take responsibility for the project for its whole life to achieve the carbon emissions savings estimated at the start of the project.

Making a Successful Project

The most important part of any project is the people who are involved.

The households that receive a cookstove need to understand the purpose of the project and to be committed to using the cookstove for their cooking.

The project partner needs to be committed to the people in the communities they are working with and able to respond to the particular demands of a carbon offsetting project.

One of the key demands is time – our carbon calculations assume that the cookstoves will last for at least five years. The project partner needs to take responsibility for the project for its whole life to achieve the carbon emissions savings estimated at the start of the project.

Designing a project

Baseline

Monitoring

Making a Successful Project

The Projects

Climate Stewards - For people and planet