How can women contribute to biochar revolution from their kitchen?

1. The “Sunderbans” Business Model
- Key Successes and Achievements
Servals Automation Pvt Ltd
Earn While you Cook
“ A Triple Line Oriented Economic
Model that pays households for
using improved cook-stoves”
Sapient Infotech

2. Background
 In Sunderbans, India
 Around TLUD Gasifier Biomass
Cookstove
 First carbon project with Gasifier
cookstoves
 Largest dissemination of gasifiers
in the world till date
 First ever to build in a charcoal
buyback system
 Best organised at the local level
(kudos to the implementation
partner- Sapient - in Sunderbans)
Servals and Sapient have set up a pioneering carbon project
Has Received Gold Standard Registration
Has started generating Carbon Credits

3. Background
 The project has 8500 TLUD installations so far;
expected to reach 15000 installations in the next 6
months.
 Process is underway to upgrade this project, which
is currently registered as a “Gold Standard project”
to a “CDM Gold Standard project”.
 The CDM is a UN standard and requires more
stringent monitoring and evaluations. In simple
language, in “carbon credit” parlance, CDM Gold
Standard projects are considered more “premium
quality” than Gold Standard.
 Atmosfair, A German NGO, is our carbon funder

4. What was the intended Goal?
The vision was to develop a business model for the
dissemination of the improved cookstoves
• That are not dependent on grants or subsidy
• That create a series of economic activity in the
local community
•That creates an eco-system for other stakeholders
to participate in the economic activity (Loan
partners, local stakeholders, local distribution
channels, rural households)
Create the Charcoal
“Collateral”

5. The “TLUD Charcoal”
Economy…
 The Households using TLUD ..
 Will store the charcoal after each cooking session in a
container..about 15-20 kg per month
 Which will get picked up by the charcoal entrepreneur
 Every month
 For which they will get paid every month
 The charcoal entrepreneur will consolidate charcoal
quantities
 And sell them to charcoal users

6. Business While Cooking…

7. Notable Mentions of the “Earn While you
Cook” Model at Sunderbans
 At 8500 households (as on Apr ‘15) this is the largest organized charcoal
buy-back program in the world
 Currently producing 125 ton of charcoal per week
 Valued at INR 1.5 million per week
.
A 7 crore economic enterprise from
cookstove residue from 8500 households
….

8. The Socio-Economic-
Environmental Balance Sheet
 Social:
– Users earning 250 per month - 8000 users
– The Charcoal Buyer employs additional 20 workers to handle our load of
charcoal
 Economic:
– Setting up a rural enterprise - Quality Enterprise
– INR 6 million infused into the rural economy of the project area every
month ( 4 ml char turnover + 2 ml user earning )
– Rural wealth generation - vans for quality enterprise, high profitability
 Environmental:
– 1kg of TLUD charcoal saves 6 kg of wood - corresponding to approx. 7 kg of
CO2.
– 300 T of charcoal generated every month = 1800 T of wood saved = 2160 T
of CO2 emission saved per month only for charcoal

9. What is the significance of
this achievement
• Shows that a triple bottom-line oriented business model is possible in the
household cook-stove sector
• Shows that the cook-stove addresses at least 5 out of the 8 Millennium
Development Goals of the UN
• Shows that the TLUD charcoal residue can be a meaningful new source of energy
fuel
• Shows that building the entire cook-stove ecosystem rather than just selling
cook-stoves, is a more sustainable way to promote clean cook-stoves
• Shows that grant/subsidy/patient capital targeted at market building can be
effective
.
The ‘Cook-n-Earn’ model, can create tangible social impact while
alleviating energy poverty.
…

10. Learnings
- The “short elevator” pitch
• Cook-n-Earn is an energy access program with a difference.
• Through the act of cooking with a clean cookstove, women from low income
households become artisans who turn biomass into charcoal
• which they then sell to earn additional income.
• By supplying biomass, local vendors of clean, sustainable fuels are presented
with unprecedented opportunities for market creation, brought about by clean
cookstoves and charcoal.
Measurable communal and economic benefits
Emboldens corporations and businesses in their quest to realise triple bottom
line benefits.
Enables generation of carbon credits that can be purchased by corporations to
reduce their carbon footprints.

11. What Next?
• Help Spread the Message about Business model
• To identify more project implementers who can build such programs
• To identify project funders who can help replicate the model
• Help spread the Message about this new fuel
• Green or organic charcoal?
• Additional source of legitimate fuel
• Environmental benefits of this fuel source
.
Evangelize the success to create more such
successes…

12. Thank You