Problem 1 – Indoor Air Pollution

• Each year, close to 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from inefficient cooking practices using polluting stoves paired with solid fuels and kerosene, killing more people worldwide than malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis combined. (>4.5 millions).

• IAP causes more than 18,000 pre-mature deaths in Mozambique every year

• Household air pollution causes noncommunicable diseases including stroke, ischaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and lung cancer.

• Affects mostly women and children

Problem 2 – Charcoal and fire-wood from unsustainable sources

• Charcoal is mainly produced from virgin unmanaged forest

• Forest cover is rapidly diminishing all across Mozambique

• Without forest cover, the soil rapidly degrades through erosion, and nutrients are washed away with rains

• Charcoal production is responsible for immense local, regional, and global pollution.

• For every 1kg of charcoal produced, 6-8kg of wood is required

Problem 3 – Lack of access to modern energy

• Connection to the national power grid will not be possible to achieve in rural Mozambique in the near future

• A modern life without proper lighting and mobile phone charging is not possible

• The future lies in distributed renewable energy such as solar and biomass

• Rural communities lack the capital to purchase their own capacity and providing clean cookstoves is an affordable & sustainable fuel source for all.

THE SOLUTION

• Our solution is to distribute specialised clean cookstoves that double as micro-biochar kilns. These stoves pyrolyse and gasify the CNS into biochar, simultaneously harnessing the waste heat to be used for cooking. These micro-biochar-stove units are subsidised by carbon finance and will be distributed free of charge.

• Our model uses local agri-wastes as the fuel source, in Mozambique Cashew nut shells (CNS) are plentiful and they are otherwise discarded and burnt, leading to significant emissions.

• We divert waste Cashew nut shells from processing facilities and sell it to our customers. When they come to buy their fuel they deposit the biochar that they have collected and get a discounted fuel rate.

THE RESULTS

• The emissions savings follow our Oxford University (OxCarbon) approved methodology (ISO 14040-2006 compliant), which is based on a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). The carbon credits are only issued once the CRM has confirmed the actual fuel consumption, which is validated by data uploaded from the Smart Stove.

For more information see the link

Carbon Credits as an Enabler of Sustainable Cooking Fuels, Reforestation and Food Production (globallandscapesforum.org)