ImpactAlpha, October 31 – More than two billion people still use kerosene, wood, charcoal and other rudimentary, dirty fuels for most of their cooking. Clean cooking is now front and center in Africa’s climate conversation.
Kenya-based Burn Manufacturing has manufactured and distributed four million clean cookstoves in 10 African countries since 2011. Its original cookstove model was designed to burn biomass fuel more efficiently and was sold on a pay-as-you-go basis. It has since added electric and liquid petroleum gas, or LPG, designs (there are arguable climate advantages to LPG, given the scale of firewood and charcoal use in Africa.)
Burn is issuing a $10 million bond, among the first green bonds in Africa’s clean cooking sector, to set up a manufacturing facility in Nigeria and increase the company’s production capacity by 50%. The bond design was supported by FSD Africa and verified by Agusto & Co.
Energy access
Just 43% of Africans have access to electricity (and not necessarily reliable access). Most Africans rely on charcoal and firewood to meet their cooking needs. In Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other countries, charcoal and firewood production is a leading cause of deforestation.
It would cost just $25 billion per year, or just 1% of total global energy investment, to achieve universal energy access in Africa.
