Category: Clean Cooking Initiatives

1. A Tale of Two Kitchens-

In a hillside village near Kigali, Aisha stirs beans on a shiny metal stove. Smoke no longer burns her eyes. Meanwhile, in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul district, Sunita still cooks on an open fire that blackens her thatch roof. The difference isn’t technology alone; it is finance.

Rwanda’s project earned Article 6 authorized carbon credits, sold them to premium buyers, and used the money to scale factory jobs and distribution. Malawi followed next. India- home to 100 million biomass-dependent households can be third, bigger, and faster. This blog picks apart the African playbook and maps each lesson to the Indian reality, with Anaxee’s last-mile network as the execution engine.

---

2. Quick Recap: Article 6 in Kitchen-Table English

– Old days: Anyone could buy a voluntary credit, retire it, and claim “carbon neutral,” even if the host nation also counted the same reduction in its NDC.
– New days: Host governments can grant or withhold a Letter of Authorization. If granted, they promise a corresponding adjustment—so no double counting.
– Result: Buyers wanting bullet-proof claims now pay more for these authorized units. Projects that secure LOAs early win big.

---

3. Case Study #1: Atmosfair’s Rwanda Clean-Cooking Programme

3.1 The Production Pivot

Atmosfair first assembled stoves in Germany. Shipping costs ate margin. With projected premium revenue, they risked moving tooling to Kigali. The gamble worked: local value-add impressed the government and sped up LOA approval.

Lesson for India: Domestic manufacturing- say in Jabalpur or Guwahati- signals long-term commitment and aligns with Make-in-India goals, smoothing state-level clearances.

3.2 Data Discipline

Each Rwandan household answers periodic mobile surveys, backed by sensor data (temperature and usage). Gold Standard auditors loved the hard evidence, cutting questions about over-crediting.

Anaxee angle: Digital Runners can replicate this by embedding Bluetooth stove loggers and using the Anaxee app for survey sync.

---

4. Case Study #2: Hestian’s Malawi Rural Stove Network

4.1 Trust Over Templates

Malawi lacked a formal Article 6 law, yet officials showed readiness. Hestian offered full transparency—open PDD drafts, community letters, financial projections. Trust, not bureaucracy, closed the gap.

Take-away for India: Even if national CCTS rules are pending, project developers can start dialogues today with state environment departments and the re-notified DNA.

4.2 Scale and Equitable Split

Hestian built in a share-of-proceeds mechanism: 2 % of gross revenue funds Malawi’s national cleaner-cooking roadmap. The proposal boosted political goodwill. India could mirror this by committing a slice of revenue to district health missions or women’s self-help groups- an alignment bureaucrats value.

---

5. Five Big Takeaways for India’s Cookstove & Agroforestry Space

---

6. How Anaxee Can Replicate- and Improve

1. Hyper-granular Baseline. Digital Runners already conduct socio-economic surveys; add fuel-use metrics and GIS tags for stronger baseline accuracy.
2. Drone Fly-overs Every Quarter. Confirm canopy growth in agroforestry corridors; footage auto-idles into IPFS (immutable ledger).
3. Distributed Warehouse Model. 25 regional hubs store stoves/seeds, cutting logistics cost and emissions (extra SDG credit!).
4. Immutable Ledger Sync. Sensor and drone data hashed to blockchain; auditable trail reduces verifier time and cost.
5. Pay-per-Performance App. Household receives ₹ mobile top-ups when sensors prove daily stove usage—locks in behaviour change, slashes non-usage risk discounts.

---

7. Where the Money Will Come From in 2025-2028

– Airlines: Each tonne they emit above baseline must be offset; Phase 1 cap gets tighter in 2026. Authorized units are their only allowed currency.

– Singapore Inc.: DBS Bank, Temasek portfolio firms, and regulated power plants can use Article 6 credits to cover 5 % of emissions.

– EU-based Firms: Many now commit to “Beyond Value Chain Mitigation” with Article 6 alignment—think IKEA, H&M.

– Indian Corporates: New BRSR Core reporting norms push big listed companies toward verifiable, adjustment-backed tonnes for net-zero claims.

---

8. Frequently Asked Questions (Quick-Fire)

Q1. Does India already allow LOAs?
Draft template exists; final notification expected late 2025. Early pilots may use provisional letters via MoEFCC.

Q2. What if the government revokes the LOA?
Gold Standard rules hold back equivalent credits in an insurance pool; buyers refunded or replaced.

Q3. Are authorized credits double the price?
Current spot data shows 20–40 % uplift. As supply grows, premium may narrow but should remain >10 %.

Q4. Can agroforestry bundles qualify?
Yes, if permanence (>30 years) and leakage controls meet DNA guidelines. Anaxee’s drone monitoring helps.

Q5. Are sensors mandatory?
Not legally, but they slash uncertainty deductions and impress auditors—cheap insurance in practice.

---

9. Closing Call

Africa proved that even small countries with limited resources can release Article 6 authorized credits in under six months. India has bigger talent, bigger markets, and bigger climate needs. All it takes is organised data, honest partnerships, and smart field logistics—the things Anaxee does every day.

Ready to turn smoky kitchens into verifiable climate finance?
Scedule a 30 minute call with us at sales@anaxee.com Let’s cook up India’s next carbon success- one authorized credit at a time.

About Anaxee: Anaxee is India’s Reach Engine! we are building India’s largest last-mile outreach network of 100,000 Digital Runners (shared feet-on-street, tech-enabled) to help Businesses and Social Organizations scale to rural and semi-urban India, We operate in 26 states, 540+ districts, and 11,000+ pin codes in India. We Help in last-mile execution of projects for (1) Corporates, (2) Agri-focused companies, (3) Climate, and (4) Social organizations. Using technology and people on-the-ground (our Digital Runners), we help in scale and execute projects across 100s of cities and bring 100% transparency in groundwork. We also work in the Tech for Climate domain, providing technology for the execution and monitoring of Nature-Based (NbS) and Community projects. Our technology & processes bring transparency and integrity into carbon projects across various methodologies (Agroforestry, Regen Agriculture, Solar devices, Improved Cookstoves, Water filters, LED lamps, etc.) worldwide.

Problem with Traditional ICS Distribution Process
Most Improved Cookstove projects struggle during the distribution phase. They don’t know exactly who should get the cookstove or where to carry out the distribution. So, they just go for bulk distribution and hope it works. But to make clean cooking project successful, you need proper data, planning and technology.

Digital Intervention in ICS Distribution Process
Digital intervention should begin much before the distribution. You should already know your beneficiaries before handing over the cookstoves. This is only possible if you do a 100% baseline survey in the beginning- not just a small sample. You need complete information like how people cook, what fuel they use, their family size and whether they are actually eligible for the ICS or not.

With this data, you can filter out those who are not eligible and focus only on those who really need the stove. This is where digital intervention helps the most. Using technology, you can easily manage this large data and make better decisions.

For example- During the distribution, we do digital verification of the beneficiary using the data collected earlier. This ensures that the right person is receiving the cookstove. It avoids any fraud or duplication and keeps the process clean and transparent.

This same data also helps to decide the best locations for distribution centres. Using the GPS data, we can select the best storage and distribution points close to the beneficiaries. This saves their time and makes logistics simpler.

At the distribution site, we also take a photo of the beneficiary with the ICS. Their agreement or consent is taken in a digital format as proof. All of this becomes a proper record- easy to verify and report during audits.

This is how the distribution process should be done- planned, verified and data-backed.
Not like the way where you enter a village with a truck full of cookstoves and start giving them away on the spot. That may look easy, but it creates confusion, misuse and poor results. Instead, with the right digital intervention and proper groundwork, every stove reaches the right person. So in the end, you’re not just distributing cookstoves- you’re building trust, transparency, and accountability into every step of your project.

At Anaxee, this is the approach we follow. If you also want to structure your clean cooking/ Improved Cookstove project in India better, connect with us at sales@anaxee.com