In Uganda, a country where 95 percent of the populace relies on wood and charcoal for cooking, inefficient cooking practices are a major cause of deforestation. The country’s appetite for wood and charcoal in homes, schools, and other institutions is fed by invasive clear-cutting of the few remaining areas of pristine forest. Despite government efforts to stop the practice, strong demand continues to drive the destruction of forests, and of the animals that inhabit them.

In addition to environmental consequences, inefficient cooking places undue financial and health burdens on Ugandans, half of whom live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 per day. The poorest people in the country spend as much as 15 percent of their income on cooking fuel. The indoor air pollution generated by solid fuel-burning cookstoves in homes and schools causes pneumonia, cancer, and respiratory ailments that primarily affect the women and children who spend long hours in the kitchen.

Impact Carbon has partnered with JPMorgan Climate Care and a local Ugandan enterprise, Ugastove, to leverage carbon finance to create a long-term, sustainable solution to these problems in Uganda.

The Uganda Efficient Stove Project developed new efficient charcoal and wood stove technology for Uganda and is building distribution channels to shift the country toward efficient, healthy stove use. Carbon finance has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidies to poor consumers and supported the distribution of more than 50,000 efficient stoves to date. These stoves reduce charcoal and wood use by 35 to 65 percent, and save the poorest families more than US$75 per year. The project has also developed a local, sustainable stove manufacturing enterprise that employs more than 50 workers in Makindye, a slum in the capital city of Kampala.

The project was the first cookstove project ever to be accepted for registration by The Voluntary Gold Standard, the stringent carbon offset guidelines. The Gold Standard provides assurance to buyers that carbon offsets are real, measured using strict methods, carefully audited, meet the rigorous CDM test for additionality, and have significant social impact in addition to the emission reductions that they represent.