Malawi’s cooking landscape is complex and requires a multifaceted approach to increase efforts for better energy supply and demand. According to the 2018 Malawi Population and Housing Census nearly 96% of households in Malawi rely on unsustainable and even illegally sourced biomass (charcoal and firewood) for domestic cooking and heating energy. With rapid changes in the urban cooking landscape and continued urban migration, the use of charcoal as the primary cooking fuel in urban households increased from 44.6% in 2011 to 76% in 2018 with estimated charcoal usage to increase 10% per year (ibid). Large and sustained efforts are needed to reverse these trends.

A key objective of the mitigation activity is to reduce the use of charcoal as a cooking fuel in urban households through fuel switching to sustainably produced biomass fuels (i.e. stick wood from forestry and agroforestry programmes, pelleted/briquetted fuels from crop residues, forest residues and high yield short rotation agroforestry species). CQC’s suite of pellet stoves and wood stoves are known as Advanced Biomass Stoves (ABS), forced air stoves and gasifier stoves, which run on processed or raw biomass, designed to offer consumers improved cooking performance.

The urban and peri-urban households will be provided with an ABS that uses a fan-assisted combustion system, powered by solar panels, to create an ‘LPG’-equivalent technology that is more suitable to this population, based on consumer feedback. The food market in Lilongwe will also be equipped. The emission reductions generated by the 200,000 urban and peri-urban households using the new stoves will be sold as ITMOs to Switzerland.

Charcoal produced from trees on agricultural land and savannah woodlands is arguably the most environmentally destructive form of energy used in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, charcoal is produced using traditional earth mound kilns, mainly operated by part-time producers, such as farmers generating extra income from trees felled in nearby forests or on their own farmland. These kilns are extremely inefficient and achieve a low conversion rate from wood to charcoal. Replacing charcoal as a cooking fuel in urban Africa is critical to sustainable food and water security, as charcoal harvested from native forest and farmland is the largest source of deforestation and land degradation in most African countries.

The stoves significantly improve the combustion process and thereby greatly reduce exposure to toxic emissions – particularly PM2.5 – that increase susceptibility to respiratory diseases, including acute respiratory distress, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer. In addition, the activity provides both short and long-term employment in the communities via its Stove Champion scheme and its stove installation teams. For every 100,000 households served, CQC provides long-term employment to about 150-200 people who act as stove champions in urban areas, mostly women, who visit each household twice a year during the dry season to follow up on stove maintenance and ensure proper use.

The activity Cookstove and Sustainable Biomass will generate over 1 million ITMOs over an 7-year period (2024-2030) in urban and peri-urban areas.