Eighty percent of Kenya’s population lives in rural areas. Of these people, 93 percent use biomass fuel such as wood to meet their energy needs for cooking and heating. The country’s resulting rate of deforestation is extreme – over a 10-year period, Kenya’s forest cover has fallen from 3 percent to only 1.7 percent of the total land cover. Kenyans are walking farther to collect fuel as the population grows and wood becomes increasingly scarce. Environmental pressures on forests result in erosion and less arable land.

Impact Carbon is partnering with The Paradigm Project, Food for the Hungry and World Vision to alleviate these pressures by developing a carbon-financed cookstove project that will reach hundreds of thousands of Kenyans in rural areas. The project is starting in the rural areas of Marsabit and Mehru, and will continue to expand to other areas.

Impact Carbon is working to identify what the population needs, select technologies and pursue marketing and distribution channels that will facilitate widespread adoption of efficient cooking stoves. In managing the project’s carbon asset development, we seek to ensure the value from this project is returned to the NGO partner organizations.