New Partnership Tackles Indoor Air Pollution In Nigeria

Colorado-based cookstove company Envirofit has formed a strategic partnership with the international Shell Foundation, and the US-based carbon finance business, C-Quest Capital, to kickstart a clean cookstoves industry in Nigeria.

Over three billion people cook on open fires or inefficient stoves in poorly ventilated homes. Toxic smoke from indoor cooking causes severe lung and respiratory illness, contributes to climate change, and claims one life every 16 seconds in the developing world.

For centuries the high costs associated with developing affordable “cleaner” stoves and getting them to market in a country of Nigeria’s size has prohibited a practical solution from emerging.

The partnership between Envirofit, Shell Foundation and C-Quest seeks to solve this problem by using cutting-edge stove technology and carbon financing to distribute stoves throughout Nigeria at prices that consumers can afford.

Envirofit and Shell Foundation have created a global cookstoves business that allows them to develop and market affordable clean cookstoves that are up to four times as efficient as open fires, significantly reducing indoor air pollution, fuel usage and cooking times. Wach wood cookstove is also estimated to save over one ton of carbon per year.

The stoves will be designed to conform to traditional cooking styles, which means they’ll still be burning coal and/or wood.