This project allows families in rural Kenya to cook food using cleaner, more efficient cookstoves. Communities typically use wood and charcoal to fuel open fires and inefficient cookstoves, creating indoor air pollution, releasing CO2e emissions into the atmosphere, and putting pressure on local forests.
Households in the project area used to cook on a traditional three-stone fireplace, and women and girls spent an average of 15 hours per week collecting fuel wood from Kakamega forest for home use. However, households that are using improved project cookstoves are spending only 4.9 hours per week to collect firewood. The poverty rate around Kakamega Forest is above 28.5 percent, and unemployment is above 25 percent. This called for a simple, affordable, and locally produced efficient stove technology to reduce wood consumption and preserve the unique vegetation and biodiversity of Kakamega Forest.
The project, therefore, identified the efficient Upesi cook stove as an appropriate technology for this region. Nowadays, 90 percent of all households within 3-5 kilometers distance to the rainforest have an efficient cook stove – a great success! However, most households located further away from the Kakamega forest still use traditional three-stone fireplaces for cooking.
The Upesi stove is a natural ceramic stove and is 35-50 percent more efficient than the three-stone stove. It is manufactured and marketed at a subsidized price by local potter groups. The efficient stove is not a portable stove but is being fix installed in households. This is more convenient for cooking since traditional dishes such as Ugali (made from maize flour) must be stirred during preparation.
The project creates local jobs as office workers, field monitors, salespersons, and artisans. The income is used to pay school fees, for example. Additionally, women and girls from families with an efficient stove are not any longer exposed to smoky open fires and have to spend less time collecting firewood. A lot of women use this time for an income, such as beekeeping or products from Ocimum kilimandscharicum, a wild indigenous medicinal plant. Such small business opportunities that generate a regular income are essential for the people in rural Kenya to become independent – which is very important to be able to develop long-term perspectives.
The project is developed and implemented by the Kenyan organization Eco2librium. Eco2librium was again honored as Best for the World in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022, placing it among Global B Corporations and being called Changemakers – those companies in the world taking the lead. The recognition follows a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of a company's impact on its workers, community, and the environment.
