A simple stoves helps improve lives in Malawi
The project activity aims at distributing 41,472 improved cookstoves that are more efficient and use less wood for household cooking and heating than traditional stoves. The new stoves are three times as efficienct as the three stone and unimproved cook-stoves used prior to the project activity. This results from an improved combustion and heat transfer, raising the cooking pot to the hottest point above the flame, and improved heat retention. To make sure efficiency is maximised, the project promotes using less and dry firewood, a pot lid and soaking legumes before cooking. The stoves called "Chitetezo Mbaula" are manufactured locally from local materials, resulting in higher income generation and acquisition of new skills for local people.
Ancillary benefits include reduced smoke during cooking, which reduces exposure to health damaging pollutants and reduced time and effort procuring woodfuel. The stoves are attractive to end-users and can result in quicker cooking times. The entire Programme of Activities (PoA) has been growing for 10 years and so far reached over 2.5 million people.
Project Standard
The project contributes to the the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals
According to a statistic from the World Health Organization (WHO, 2022) around a third of the global population still relies on unsafe and environmentally harmful cooking methods. This includes, for example, cooking over open fires or using polluting cooking fuels, such as coal or kerosene. Improved cookstoves tackle this problem by using thermal energy more efficiently.
Depending on the model, an improved cookstove can reduce fuel consumption by up to 70 percent, which significantly saves CO2 emissions and can lower the pressure on local forests as less firewood needs to be harvested.
Improved cookstove projects allow the distribution of the - often simple - devices made from metal or clay to households, small enterprises or community facilities. Especially for households, this has an impact beyond the CO2 reduction: better indoor air quality decreases respiratory diseases and families can save time and money as less fuel is needed. Improved cookstoves projects in the ClimatePartner portfolio are registered with international standards.
The project aims to contribute to these United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
TypeReduction
LocationMalawi, Countrywide
StandardGold Standard
TechnologyImproved cookstoves
Registry ID2446
Verified byEarthood Services Private Limited
Four criteria for projects to meet quality thresholds
The life cycle of a climate project
A climate project has a set life cycle consisting of various phases, from the feasibility assessment to the retirement of Verified Emission Reductions (VERs).
The project developer reviews the general feasibility of the project, the project design, and the financing. Then, the Project Design Document (PDD) is prepared, which contains all the basic information about the project, such as the objective, location, timeline, and duration.
In this phase, independent auditors examine the PDD and the information it contains. This phase often also involves field visits with on-side interviews and analyses. Auditors are accredited, impartial assessors who have to be approved by the relevant standard as a validation and verification body (VVB). TÜV Nord/Süd, S&A Carbon LLC., and SCS Global Services are examples of VVBs."
Once validated, the project can be registered with a standard such as the Verified Carbon Standard or the Gold Standard. All high-quality climate projects are based on international standards. They provide the framework for project design, construction, carbon accounting, and monitoring. Recognised standards make the climate project system and the projects themselves resilient, traceable, and credible.
After the climate project has been registered, the monitoring begins. Here, the project developers monitor and document the data of the project activities and progress. The duration of the monitoring phase varies from project to project: it can cover two years, but documentation over five or seven years is also possible.
At the end of each monitoring phase, a VVB checks and assesses whether the values and project activities stated in the monitoring report are correct. As with validation, visits to the project site are often part of the verification process.
Once verified, the emission reductions that were confirmed in the verification phase can be issued as VERs. The steps of monitoring, verification, and issuance of VERs are repeated regularly and are therefore considered as a cycle.
Once a VER has been used, it must be retired. This process is also reflected in the registry. If the financing of a climate project is done through ClimatePartner, the VERs are bundled in a system certified by TÜV Austria and then retired on a regular basis. This ensures that each VER can no longer be sold and is only used once, preventing double counting.
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