How Carbon Finance Is Making Clean Cooking More Affordable Across Africa

Carbon credit financing is helping make cleaner cooking technologies more affordable for millions of households across Africa, accelerating efforts to reduce household air pollution, protect forests and expand access to modern energy.

For Nairobi businesswoman Mary Kavutha, the transition has brought immediate changes to her daily life.

Every morning, Kavutha prepares breakfast for her two young children using an induction cooker in her Nairobi home. Two years ago, she relied on a charcoal stove that filled the kitchen with smoke and cost her about $1.15 a day in fuel.

Today, she says she can cook several meals for around 80 cents in electricity tokens.

“It cooks much faster, and is much safer because I have young children,” Kavutha said. “With charcoal there was always smoke in the house. Now I can cook indoors comfortably, and I spend much less.”

Her experience reflects a wider shift taking place across the continent as governments, investors and clean-cooking companies search for ways to move households away from polluting fuels.

Nearly 1 Billion Africans Still Rely on Charcoal and Firewood

Despite growing investment in clean energy, nearly 1 billion people in Africa still rely on charcoal or firewood for everyday cooking.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that household air pollution associated with these fuels contributes to approximately 850,000 deaths every year across the continent.

The health consequences are particularly serious for women and children, who often spend significant amounts of time near household cooking fires.

Yet for many families, the decision to switch to cleaner technology is driven less by climate concerns than by cost, convenience and safety.

Carbon finance is increasingly helping to bridge that affordability gap.

Carbon Credits Help Cut the Cost of Clean Stoves

Carbon credits allow clean-cooking companies to raise financing against the future emissions reductions generated when households move away from charcoal, firewood and other polluting fuels.

The model effectively provides a subsidy that can reduce the upfront cost of clean cooking appliances.

Peter Scott, founder and CEO of Nairobi-based clean-cooking manufacturer BURN, said carbon finance has been crucial to making the technology accessible to low-income households.

“The only way clean cooking is going to scale on the continent is through carbon project finance,” Scott said.

“Governments earn revenue and customers get a product they would never have been able to afford without that subsidy.”

BURN says it has distributed more than 7.3 million cookstoves across 11 African countries.

Scott argues that the company's major breakthrough has not simply been developing more efficient cooking appliances, but finding ways to finance their distribution.

“Our biggest innovation is not the stove itself, but the financing behind it,” he said.

An efficient biomass stove that might normally retail for around $40 can cost customers as little as $5 after carbon subsidies, according to the company.

More expensive electric appliances, including induction cookers, can be supported through carbon credits alongside short-term pay-as-you-go financing, allowing households to spread payments over several months.

Africa Steps Up Clean-Cooking Investment

Momentum around clean cooking has grown in recent years.

In June, the IEA announced that Africa had secured $900 million in new financial commitments towards clean-cooking technologies.

More than 30 governments in countries representing roughly 80% of Africans who lack access to clean cooking have also introduced 121 new clean-cooking policies since the 2015 Paris climate summit, according to the energy agency.

The issue has increasingly moved up the political agenda.

“Clean cooking is not a luxury, but an everyday necessity affecting every household,” Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said after co-hosting an IEA clean-cooking conference in Dar es Salaam earlier this year.

The conference followed the African Union's Dar es Salaam Declaration on Clean Cooking, adopted by 30 governments last year.

Concerns Over Carbon Credit Markets Remain

Despite the rapid expansion of carbon-financed clean cooking, the model continues to face scrutiny.

Carbon markets have long attracted criticism over the credibility of some projects and questions about whether claimed emissions reductions accurately reflect what would otherwise have occurred.

The clean-cooking industry has responded by adopting more sophisticated methods of monitoring and verification.

Companies are increasingly using technologies such as Bluetooth-enabled monitoring, digital verification and real-time usage data to track how appliances are being used and calculate resulting emissions reductions.

However, critics warn that carbon finance alone cannot provide a sufficiently reliable foundation for Africa's clean-cooking transition.

The closure of Kenyan clean-energy company Koko Networks in February highlighted some of the risks facing businesses that depend heavily on carbon markets. The company, once widely viewed as a symbol of Africa's green transition, shut down after failing to secure a government letter of authorisation required to sell carbon credits.

George Mwaniki, the World Resources Institute (WRI) Kenya representative and head of Air Quality for WRI Africa, said carbon finance should complement rather than replace other sources of investment.

“Carbon financing is more of a second financing source,” Mwaniki said.

The challenge, he explained, is that companies need substantial capital to manufacture and distribute clean-cooking equipment before they can generate the emissions reductions that eventually produce carbon credits.

“If we depend wholly on carbon credits to support the transition, it will be extremely slow and will not happen at the pace that we need it to,” he said.

Companies Adapt Technology to Local Needs

Clean-cooking companies are increasingly tailoring their products to the energy resources and cooking habits of individual markets.

BURN says electric cooking is more viable in countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, where electricity access and infrastructure make induction cooking more practical.

In countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar, biomass-powered stoves remain more suitable for many households.

Other companies are developing alternatives based on locally available agricultural waste.

Eco Safi, which operates in Uganda, Kenya and Malawi, offers forced-draft pellet stoves alongside renewable fuel made from agricultural waste.

In Rwanda, BioMassters manufactures solar-powered pellet stoves and biomass-residue fuel, while ENEDOM produces briquettes from agricultural residues in Kigali.

The range of technologies reflects the reality that there is no single solution capable of meeting the cooking needs of every African household.

Cleaner Cooking Offers Immediate Benefits

For households like Kavutha's, the benefits of switching are tangible.

The cleaner kitchen, lower fuel costs and reduced exposure to smoke provide immediate improvements, while the broader transition could also help reduce pressure on forests and cut greenhouse-gas emissions.

For Kavutha, however, the decision was ultimately straightforward.

“My kitchen is cleaner, my children are safer, and I spend less,” she said. “That is all that matters.”

Her experience illustrates why advocates believe affordability will be central to Africa's clean-cooking transition.

Carbon finance may not be sufficient on its own, but by lowering the cost of cleaner appliances and attracting private investment, it is helping bring technologies that were once out of reach within the budgets of ordinary households.

As governments and businesses seek to close Africa's clean-cooking gap, the challenge will be ensuring that carbon markets remain credible while securing the wider public and private investment needed to make cleaner cooking accessible at continental scale.