Enabling women in at-risk communities to make the transition to clean energy
The project enables women microentrepreneurs in rural areas of India to access funding for improved cookstoves and solar lamps and helps to build supply chains in remote regions. The women use these products for both their businesses (e.g. cookstoves for small restaurants or solar lamps to extend the opening hours of a small shop) and their homes (e.g. to provide a safe source of light for children to study after dark). The money saved on fuel enables the women to repay the loans. Organised in self-help groups, the women meet regularly to support each other, monitor satisfaction, and encourage the use of clean energy products. Each group has a clean energy leader who manages after-sales support in case the products need servicing or repair. Some women work as clean energy demonstrators, travelling to nearby villages to educate others about the benefits of the new products. In this way, they enable more women to take the first step on their clean energy journey.
Open fires and kerosene lamps are still widely used in rural India, despite the environmental damage they cause and the risks of fire, injury, and poor respiratory health. Many energy-efficient products are often expensive or difficult to access in remote areas, making projects like this one especially necessary.
Improved cookstoves are more energy efficient and generate less indoor smoke pollution. Solar lamps replace kerosene lamps by using sunlight to generate their electricity. The use of both products significantly reduces carbon emissions and can alleviate pressure on local forests as less firewood is needed. For local people, the benefits go beyond carbon reduction: better indoor air quality prevents respiratory diseases and families can save time and money with the reduced need for fuel or firewood. Improved cookstove and solar lamp projects in the ClimatePartner portfolio are registered with these international standards.
TypeReduction
LocationIndia, Countrywide
StandardGold Standard
TechnologyMicroloans for solar lamps + improved cookstoves
Registry ID11482
Verified byEarthood Services Private Limited
Validated byEarthood Services Private Limited
Estimated annual emission reductions867,980 t CO₂
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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