Jose Santos from Guajoquito, Honduras gathers wood that is ONLY used for cooking. He travels on foot for 40 minutes in each direction to find it and bring it home. 35 pounds of wood, about one third of what he is carrying, lasts just 2 days. He doesn’t have a Proyecto Mirador stove. If he did, he would cut wood use in half compared with the traditional stove he is using now.

Data from the project indicates that the number one benefit of the stove cited by users is this wood savings. Wood savings translate into emission reductions at about 3 metric tonnes of CO₂ per year. Wood savings also equate to 3.71 hours per week in time saved collecting wood. For those that purchase wood, savings equate to about $2.50 per week. For those with wages of about $1,387 per year, this is 3-5% of annual income. You can see why wood savings are pretty important!

As for the number of trees saved, they matter too but they are harder to estimate. Using forestry-based estimates it is suggested that each stove saves between 5 and 9 trees per year. That adds up when you consider the project builds about 20,000 stoves a year!

Less wood. Less CO₂. Less money spent. Less time wasted. No wonder Jose Santos says he wants one!