Carbon Offsets - Clean Cookstoves Africa

Cleaner cookstove projects improves the livelihoods of people and communities in Africa.

Around the world, some 3 billion people still cook on an open fire. They cook food for their families, heat their homes and in many cases, purify their water through boiling.

This is not only inefficient, but also expensive, with the cost of fuel being a large weekly outgoing. It is also a cause of deforestation. It is estimated that over 50% of all wood harvested worldwide is used as a fuel source. With around 30% of that wood estimated to be from unsustainable sources. As you would expect, the use of unsustainable timber for cooking is particularly prominent in developing countries.

Deforestation is an increasingly large issue. In fact, on average, an area of tree cover the size of the United Kingdom was lost every year between 2014 and 2018.

This is where clean cookstoves have an important role to play. By providing more efficient cooking equipment to households and communities, it can really benefit the people that need it most.

Benefits of Cleaner Cookstove Carbon Credits

Cleaner cookstoves typically reduce the energy consumption for cooking by 40-60%. This results in reduced carbon emissions, as well as many other benefits.

Wider benefits include:

• Reduced consumption of firewood / cooking fuel
• Potentially saving families up to 15% of their valuable household income
• Improved building indoor health
  • The WHO estimate that indoor smoke is responsible for 1.9 million deaths in Africa each and every year
• Time saving, due to less time spent collecting fuel and more efficient and quicker cooking process
• Reduced deforestation

Alignment with UN Sustainable Development Goals

Clean cookstoves are often aligned with the UN Sustainable Development goals:

• UN SDG 3 – Good health and well-being
• UN SDG 13 – Climate action
• UN SDG 15 – Life on Land

Clean Cookstoves – Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard Credits

Voluntary carbon offset credits are available to both the Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard (VCS). These two carbon offset schemes ensure that credits are:

• Verified
• Robust
• Transparent
• Tracable

This provides the level of assurance needed to makes claims of reduced carbon, or as the basis for carbon neutrality or Net Zero Carbon.

Where to Buy Carbon Offsets

Circular Ecology can provide carbon offsets to businesses, using carbon credits from Gold Standard, Verified Carbon Standard or Plan Vivo. We have carbon offset registry accounts for all three of those well respected offset certification schemes. For volumes over 500 tCO2e, please contact us at Circular Ecology.

To offset your carbon now, please see our store:

Further Information

If you would like to discuss carbon offsets, please contact us.