Impact Carbon’s mission is to improve health and the environment through clean energy projects that reduce carbon emissions. We generate carbon-emission reductions from household energy projects that improve living conditions in the less-developed communities we serve. We leverage the financial returns from these projects to benefit local partners and people.
Formerly the Center for Entrepreneurship in International Health and Development (CEIHD), a research center at within the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley with close ties to Dr. Kirk Smith's research group, we focused on developing relevant and comprehensive methodologies and instrumentation for evaluating stove performance. Impact Carbon is now focused on quantifying greenhouse gas emission reductions and on building business models for reinvesting carbon revenues to increase stove distribution and dissemination.
We collaborate with an extensive network of partners to carry out our work. Our multi-disciplinary team includes experts in environmental health, carbon finance project development, enterprise development in a developing country context, energy, energy efficiency, and health policy. We are guided by an advisory board of distinguished academics, practitioners, and business leaders.
Contact Information
Our Focus
Impact Carbon has created several pilot projects aimed at expanding the commercial markets for the best cooking and heating technologies throughout the world. In Uganda, we have developed new efficient charcoal and wood stove technology for Uganda and is building distribution channels to shift the country toward efficient, healthy stove use. Carbon finance has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidies to poor consumers and supported the distribution of more than 50,000 efficient stoves to date. These stoves reduce charcoal and wood use by 35 to 65 percent, and save the poorest families more than US$75 per year. The project has also developed a local, sustainable stove manufacturing enterprise that employs more than 50 workers in Makindye, a slum in the capital city of Kampala. This pilot project is currently scaled to the community level, but is beginning to expand to wider markets in Uganda and holds great promise for markets elsewhere in Africa.
In China, Impact Carbon is working with local partners to disseminate efficient, clean-burning stoves that replace coal with crop residue as fuel. Impact Carbon is identifying promising high-efficiency, low-emissions biomass stove technologies currently under development, as well as the best enterprises producing innovations in the field. The project targets low-income rural residents who benefit from reduced exposure to coal residues, and from improved income from fuel savings. The reach of this project will ultimately be global, as we identify export opportunities and promote selected enterprises to serve other developing countries' market needs for cleaner-burning, affordable biomass stoves.
Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas
Impact Carbon works to improve the health and well-being of women and children in developing countries by catalyzing transitions to cleaner-burning fuels and superior stoves. Our intervention model starts with identifying the needs and preferences of stove consumers to determine the best available and most appropriate technology. We then add business analysis and targeted social marketing efforts, and equip promising local entrepreneurs with the skills to profit from this market opportunity, catalyzing production and distribution of a high-quality, low emissions stove.
In Uganda, Impact Carbon is working with local government, enterprise, and community organizations to build awareness of the benefits of improved stoves, involve local women in the education and dissemination of these improved technologies, and generate carbon financing to bring the financial returns of the project back to the communities in which we work. Ugastove, Impact Carbon’s local partner in Uganda, has leveraged carbon finance to expand their business by dropping prices, extending credit to consumers, improving quality, and targeting marketing and sales efforts. Using carbon finance as a source of funding, Ugastove went from selling 3,000 stoves from January through August 2005 to selling 3,000 stoves per month in 2009, reaching over 300,000 Ugandans to date.
In China, we are identifying export markets for the best biomass stoves being in produced in China today, with the goal of bringing these technologies to other countries of the developing world. We are currently developing a carbon offset project that will eventually disseminate efficient cookstoves to the 80 million Chinese people now cooking with coal. Carbon investment will directly subsidize stoves for poor and at-risk rural customers, and be used to conduct social marketing campaigns.
In Uganda, Impact Carbon is working with local partners to develop and market a cleaner-burning, affordable, biomass stove in the high-density urban area of Makindye, Kampala. The stove technology is a safe, clean, user-friendly and efficient charcoal fueled stove that reduces indoor and environmental air pollution and improves household health. The stove was initially tested during a pilot study and accordingly adapted to fit user needs and the Ugandan stove industry. Impact Carbon also worked to develop and market institutional wood burning stoves. We are currently working with partners to improve the technologies to increase their efficiency and lifetime.
In China, Impact Carbon is working with Chinese stove manufacturers and local partners to identify the best stove technologies and develop export markets for those stoves. Impact Carbon will help standardize better cooking technologies in China and elsewhere in the developing world.
Impact Carbon has a history of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities during its earlier stages in the household energy and health division of CEIHD. In 2008, these activities found a new home at Berkeley Air Monitoring Group.
Relevant Publications or Studies
None noted
Our Contribution to the Partnership
Impact Carbon offers expertise in identifying and developing markets for stoves, troubleshooting manufacturing and distribution problems, and providing micro-financing and carbon financing to producers and consumers. We have new carbon projects under development in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. We seek to leverage carbon finance to rapidly scale cookstove and other micro-energy projects. Impact Carbon is developing new projects, raising money and philanthropic support to finance new projects, and developing and providing project management services, tools and methods for the field. As a member of the partnership, we look forward to exchanging expertise and information with partners, developing a network of partnerships to support local stove enterprises, and delivering better stoves to more households at affordable prices.
