Carbon Positive

Carbon Positive's clean-burning stove trial in Ethiopia wound up in February 2007 and was declared a success. All-round benefits of the mirte and gonzie stoves distributed to households and institutional kitchens included:

• dramatically reduced indoor smoke
• protection for cooks from flames and heat
• lower wood-fuel consumption
• reduced cooking times

Project manager Ally Charlton was at the site to supervise the wrap-up of field activities and described the response as “overwhelmingly positive”.

Baking "pleasure"
The women who received the new stoves to trial in their homes reported a vast improvement in the overall cooking experience. The new stoves were found to produce far less smoke and protect the cook from flames and heat, and reduced the total time spent cooking by up to 40 per cent.

"Baking injera used to be a burden, but now it is a real pleasure,” one lady reported to Ally.

Analysis of the early data from detailed monitoring of the trial puts the reduction in fuel consumption at around 30-40 per cent. However, it was also clear that as users became more familiar with the stoves they learned to reduce the wood consumption even further.

Participants who had received the simpler, cheaper Gonzie stove had largely overcome their initial resistance observed at the beginning of the trials. Whilst most admitted that they would prefer a Mirte stove, almost all claimed that the Gonzie was still a great improvement on the traditional open fire and that they would continue to use it.

The Gumuz households - for whom the Gonzie stove was not expected to be as well-suited - were also using it successfully.
 
The new institutional stoves were also extremely well received. The cooks in these schools and colleges typically used to spend 8-9 hours per day baking injera, which had been reduced to 4-5 hours with the new stoves.

Wider benefits
Managers of the participating institutions were particularly pleased with the reduction in their costs - not just in fuel but also in labour required to split fuel wood.

A further 'knock-on' effect was that the cleanliness and modernity of the new stoves saw the cooks take greater pride in their work and more care in cleaning and maintaining their kitchen. This suggests further benefits in employee productivity and retention, as well as health and sanitation.
 
The local District and Zone officials were delighted at the boost to their efforts to address multiple challenges facing their communities:

• reducing local deforestation
• improving maternal and child health
• increasing school attendance
• reducing household poverty
• developing local enterprise

More:
Project review, conclusions and next steps
Project background