Envirofit International and Shell Foundation have joined forces with the US-based carbon finance business, C-Quest Capital, to kickstart propagation of clean cookstoves in Nigeria. The partners aim to deliver two million improved cook-stoves to Nigerian households over the next seven years.“Carbon finance can be a key enabler to reach families that are suffering the most from IAP” said Pradeep Pursnani, the Business Director in charge of Shell Foundation’s IAP programme. “This unique partnership could be a genuine game-changer. We will help C-Quest develop a viable clean cookstoves business in Nigeria and to create new routes to market. This will be no easy feat, but success will de-risk the market and attract more investment into the sector, which will encourage further innovation and deliver better more affordable products to the people who need them. It is a good example of the role business can play in sustainable development.”
The IAP problem is particularly rife in Nigeria – a country that has the largest household wood-burning population in Africa. However the high costs associated with developing affordable “cleaner” stoves that cut these emissions, and getting these to market in a country of Nigeria’s size, has meant that for centuries people have had no large scale solution to the problem.
The partnership between Envirofit, Shell Foundation and C-Quest seeks to solve this problem by using cutting-edge stove technology and carbon financing to distribute stoves throughout Nigeria at prices that consumers can afford. The work will begin in villages in Kano State in the north of the country in March 2011 and is then planned to extend to other parts of the country based on market demand. Importantly the solution has already been validated in India, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia.
“The availability of carbon revenues allows a lower price which brings high quality, durable clean cookstoves into line with inefficient alternatives and makes it an easy choice for consumers,” said Ron Bills, CEO, Envirofit. “The success of this project will significantly impact the social, economic and environmental consequences of Indoor Air Pollution in Nigeria.”
Envirofit and Shell Foundation have created a global business to develop affordable clean cookstoves that significantly reduce fuel usage, emissions and cooking times. The stoves are specifically designed to meet user’s unique cooking styles and choice of fuel (predominantly wood or charcoal). C-Quest will purchase stoves from Envirofit and market them to households across Nigeria. They will then monetize the reductions in carbon emissions that the stoves deliver. With each wood cookstove estimated to save over one tonne of carbon per year, this will help bring down the price of clean cookstoves making them accessible to millions more people across Nigeria.
The new model builds on recent developments in UN-regulated carbon offset markets. The partners hope that this will encourage new entrants into the clean cookstove sector by ensuring long-term financial-viability, dramatically scaling social and environmental impacts. It follows the launch of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves in September 2010 - a $250million public-private partnership that aims to remove barriers in the global market for clean cookstoves, such as challenges linked to accessing carbon finance, which currently prevent the sale of clean cookstoves at scale.
In three years Envirofit has become the global leader in this new market. Shell Foundation have pioneered new ways to raise consumer awareness of IAP and to explain the need to change their cooking practices. Together the partners have developed innovative distribution mechanisms in India and Africa (in Zambia, Kenya and Tanzania) – working with NGOs, governments and microfinance institutions to reach the rural and urban poor. Having sold over 200,000 stoves since 2007, benefitting over one million people, Envirofit and Shell Foundation will now bring this expertise to Nigeria.
Ken Newcombe, CEO, C-Quest Capital said: “We are thrilled to join this partnership. We know that recent developments in carbon finance make it possible to offer superior returns on capital into energy services to the poor – activities that were once solely the domain of development finance. The carbon credits that we will sell on the market will also carry a high social impact which should affect the demand for them. This is the ideal partnership to prove that this concept can work”.
