Sustainable CSU start-up expands clean-burning cookstoves to meet world demand

Envirofit International, a technology leader that uses a sustainable business model to solve global health and environmental problems, is introducing its next generation of clean cookstoves for emerging markets in the developing world. The stoves provide an alternative to traditional cooking fires, whose indoor air pollution kills 1.6 million people every year, mostly women and children.

Envirofit's new EnviroFlame Combustion System and Envirofit Cooking System represent a revolutionary change to traditional cookstove prototypes, enabling the company to enter new markets around the world.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly 3 billion people cook their daily meals indoors using traditional fires and stoves, burning biomass fuels like wood and crop waste. These traditional cooking methods convert the biomass into toxic substances, resulting in indoor air pollution that is deadly. In addition, soot from the cooking fires is second only to CO₂ in contributing to global warming. As a result, government agencies and global leaders are promoting clean-burning cookstoves as a potential stop-gap solution to slow the effects of global warming.

Envirofit's new stove line represents a significant step forward in this endeavor. "Indoor air pollution is a poverty, energy, health, climate change, and gender issue that impacts half the world's population," says Chris West, director of the Shell Foundation, Envirofit International's global cookstove partner. "If we can find a financially viable, sustainable, scalable solution we will — in one go — have a positive impact on all of these areas."

Working with the Colorado State University Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Envirofit researchers developed the EnviroFlame Combustion System. The design uses advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics, heat transfer modeling, and robust emissions and durability testing to optimize the geometry and materials of the stove. The result is a patent-pending design that makes the stoves clean-burning, efficient, light-weight, strong, durable, and affordable.

Envirofit is also launching the Envirofit Cooking System, which provides accessories that expand cooking options to accommodate the varied cooking methods around the world.

Since unveiling its first line of clean cookstoves in May 2008, Envirofit has sold more than 60,000 units in India. Over the next five years, those cookstoves could keep more than 400,000 tons of CO₂ and 85,000 kg of black carbon from entering the atmosphere, while providing cost savings for some of India's lowest-income consumers.

The stoves reduce smoke and toxic emissions by up to 80 percent, fuel use by up to 60 percent, and cooking time by at least half of traditional stoves, says Ron Bills, Envirofit chairman and chief executive officer.

Envirofit cookstoves cost the equivalent of one to three weeks wages. However, based on fuel savings alone, the stoves pay for themselves in less than six months, according to the company’s market research. By partnering with reputable microfinance groups, Envirofit has provided some of the lowest-income customers in the world the opportunity to purchase stoves.

Envirofit provides members of Grameen Koota — one of the top microfinance institutions in the world that delivers financial services to the global poor — with cookstoves that reduce indoor air pollution, use significantly less wood, and save time and effort in cooking, says Suresh Krishna, managing director of Grameen Koota Bank. "This partnership represents the ideal combination of providing sustainable products that contribute to the livelihood of our clientele while providing credit to those that do not have access to formal financial services."

In addition to microfinance groups, Envirofit has partnered with global distributors, international NGOs, carbon development managers, and government agencies in more than a dozen developing countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Ethiopia, Philippines, China, Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. Envirofit is formally launching large-scale operations in Africa in 2010, hosting an international Clean Cookstoves Expo to meet new partners in Kenya this November.