There is tremendous opportunity for carbon finance to play an integral role in improving health in developing countries as well as preserving local environments and reducing global warming emissions. However, these opportunities have never before reached those in greatest need. Developing countries have less industry, use fewer fossil fuels, and offer fewer opportunities for carbon emissions reductions. What’s more, designing carbon projects that directly benefit the poor is a complex undertaking, especially if using methods originally tailored toward developed countries and their needs.

Impact Carbon creates demonstration projects that prove the value and viability of leveraging carbon markets to benefit underserved populations. Drawing on science, experience and entrepreneurship, Impact Carbon’s projects and research reduce indoor air pollution, improve access to clean household energy technologies, build enterprise, and protect the environment on a local and global scale.

Impact Carbon sells the carbon offsets we generate from clean-burning stove use and leverages the financial returns. Such carbon finance provides an opportunity to develop and grow sustainable enterprise, by allowing local partners greater financial freedom to engage in robust marketing and sales strategy.  With carbon finance, clean cooking technologies can become more accessible and widespread, leading to healthier cooking practices worldwide.

Our approach is to develop partnerships with a network of stove enterprises so they can deliver popular stoves at an affordable price. We identify and develop markets, train local entrepreneurs, troubleshoot manufacturing and distribution problems, and access financing for both producers and consumers.

Ugastove, Impact Carbon’s local partner in Uganda, has leveraged carbon finance to expand their business by dropping prices, extending credit to consumers, improving quality, and targeting marketing and sales efforts.  Using carbon finance as a source of funding, Ugastove went from selling 3,000 stoves from January through August 2005 to selling 3,000 stoves per month in 2009.

With experience gained on successful projects in Uganda, Kenya, Mali, Ghana, China and India, we seek to leverage carbon finance to rapidly scale cookstove and other micro-energy projects. Impact Carbon is developing new projects, raising money and philanthropic support to finance new projects, and developing and providing project management services, tools and methods for the field. Impact Carbon is paving the way for organizations and carbon project developers to maximize the environmental and social impacts of carbon finance.