Happy Meal To Go

We all cook, every day. Imagine if cooking ate up 20% of your income, deforested your country, and emitted toxic smoke into your family home. This simple, locally produced cookstove solves these world size problems and reduces tonnes of carbon emissions. It’s no wonder that awareness of the new stoves is sweeping across Uganda and demand for the stoves is at sell-out levels. Through this project we want to provide Ugandans with all the stoves they are clamoring for. Bottom Line: Support this project to help more families in Uganda get access to the improved cookstoves they want and need, and help our planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation.

90% of Ugandans burn wood or charcoal in an open fire that emits more heat to the air than it does to their cookpots. The Uga stove reduces the use of wood or charcoal by 50% because it burns the fuel thoroughly and efficiently and concentrates the heat from the fire directly to the cooking surface where it matters most. Less fuel burned used equals less greenhouse gas and toxic smoke emitted.

At scale, the dissemination of thousands of stoves from this project helps forests.  Less fuel means fewer trees are cut for wood and less charcoal is produced. Charcoal production does great harm to the environment requiring large logs and felled trees to be burned in mounds of earth for long periods of time.

By reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving forests, this project benefits everyone, globally. The dissemination of thousands of stoves from this project helps forests. Less fuel means fewer trees are cut for wood and less charcoal is produced. Charcoal production does great harm to the environment requiring large logs and felled trees to be burned in mounds of earth for long periods of time. But the story goes much deeper. By supporting this project you give local families limited by traditional ways a cleaner, healthier life.

Really? A Stove Can Change Lives?

Yes it can. In a society where women must often work every waking hour of the day, and where household budgets are just adequate for survival, any cost or time savings are huge. An improved cookstove can free up to 5 or more hours of a woman’s day from wood collection, or save 20% of family income by reduced fuel costs. Read how one enterprising woman, Harriet, used the new cookstove to find a better way ahead for herself and her family.

• I own two improved cookstoves, which I purchased in 2015 and 2016. These cookstoves emit less smoke, retain heat for a long time, and save me approximately 1,000 UGX per day in charcoal costs. I cook for several people at home and sometimes also prepare meals for the employees at my husband’s bricklaying business. I add to my savings at the local savings club with the money I save. – Lusanja – Namisango Florence
• I used to spend 5,000 UGX per day on charcoal. Now with my improved cookstove, I only spend 2,000 UGX. I am a grandmother, and with the money I save, I help pay school fees for all 17 of my grandchildren. – Namilimu Juliet
• I am saving about 7,000 UGX per day with my improved cookstoves. I want to build my own house, so the money I save goes into a Bank of Africa savings account, with my hope of starting construction on my house within the next few years. – Birike Fortunate
• I save about 1,000 UGX per day on fuel with this improved cookstove. With the savings, I am able to buy more staples like soap and sugar for my home. – Daniella Katendi

The scale of stove distribution and successful usage, integrated with carbon finance, is very well demonstrated in this project. The project has distributed a large number of stoves in a short time and the audited financial reports clearly account for the sales of carbon credits. This sustained creditworthiness is very likely to attract many more partners in the future. A remarkable feature of this project is the quality of stoves manufactured locally—the stoves continue to work in excellent condition even after eight years of continuous operation.

—Sid Yadav, CEO Global Offset Research