Expanding Clean Cooking in East Africa to strengthen communities, cut pollution and save lives: US $15 million financing from European Investment Bank for Kenya-based BURN

This article is published in association with European Investment Bank.

• The $15 million financing will enable BURN to produce and distribute its industry-leading ECOA Induction Cooker to over 1 million households across East Africa.
• The investment will positively impact 6.5 million people, avoiding 12 million tons of carbon emissions over a period of 5 years.

Today BURN, the world’s leading clean cooking appliance manufacturer, distributor, and carbon project developer, and the European Investment Bank signed an agreement to invest $15 million from the EIB to fund the distribution of BURN’s ECOA Electric Induction cooker to households across the East African region.

Announced at a signature ceremony on the margins of the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Washington, the US$15 million debt investment from EIB Global will finance a solution that could significantly reduce indoor air pollution in homes across the world – a problem that currently causes 4 million premature deaths a year, and disproportionally affects the health of women living in developing countries.

Speaking from Washington the EIB Group President, Nadia Calviño said, “The investment that we have agreed today is not just about improving lives, but saving them as well. With relatively simple technology for clean cooking we will strengthen communities, especially by protecting the health of women, and their families.

This will have a positive impact on the climate as well by lowering carbon emissions. Supporting potentially transformative projects like BURN’s expansion of affordable clean cooking for more than a million households in Africa is the kind of initiative that the European Union aims to support more of under our Global Gateway Initiative.” 

From Washington, Peter Scott, Founder and CEO of BURN, stated, “BURN has already brought our unique PAYC electric cooking solution to thousands of households in Kenya and Tanzania that were previously relying on traditional charcoal stoves.   This investment by EIB will help us transition over a million low-income households to cooking with electricity, allowing them to cook on grids that are 80-95% powered by renewable energy.”

The EIB financing announced today in Washington will enable the appliances to be offered via BURN’s innovative, Pay-As-You-Cook payment offering. This tech-enabled payment solution enables affordable financing for low-income households currently using solid biomass as their primary cooking fuel but who are unable to afford full upfront payments typically required for clean electric cooking appliances.

This project is also actively supporting the empowerment of women – and has been qualified as a gender lens investment by the 2X Challenge, a global initiative launched at the G7 summit in 2018, with the EIB as one of  its members. The 2X Challenge aims to accelerate private sector investments that support women in low- and middle-income countries, using a standardized set of criteria known as the 2X criteria.

The financing support to BURN is through the Desiree Investment Envelope under the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Impact Finance Envelope (“IFE”).

The financing package from the European Commission aims to support the participation by the EIB in high-risk projects in ACP countries to support greater investments in energy efficiency and electrification ventures. The IFE supports projects that generate superior developmental impact with the overarching objective of poverty reduction through developing the private sector by taking a higher risk of investment for high developmental impact.

The ECOA Induction cooker is bundled with a high-quality, 3-piece stainless steel induction cookware set, fully manufactured in Kenya. The appliances reduce indoor air pollution by 100%, decrease cooking time by 70%, and save households money on cooking fuels.

BURN’s electric cooking appliances generate high-integrity carbon credits by using integrated cellular-enabled IoT technology which allows for effective, real-time and end-to-end monitoring of energy usage. These electric appliances reduce ~2.5 tonnes of carbon emissions annually, and contribute to EIB’s climate action, gender equality, and economic development objectives.

The company, which is also exporting its products to other countries, is also showcasing Africa’s untapped manufacturing opportunities, that create sustainable job opportunities for many young people.

To date, BURN has distributed over 5 million clean cookstoves across Africa, transforming the lives of 25 million people and preventing 26 million tons of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere. 

ABOUT BURN

Founded in 2011, BURN is Africa’s leading producer of clean cookstoves, committed to saving lives, protecting forests, and reducing CO2 emissions. Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, BURN operates in 9 countries and employs over 3,500 people, with a mission to revolutionize the clean cooking sector and provide sustainable cooking solutions across the continent.

The efficiency, safety, and benefits of BURN’s clean cooking appliances have been independently verified through peer-reviewed Randomized Control Trial (RCT) by the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago.

The study found a match to BURN’s usage and consumption measurements, finding a fuel savings of 39% against the baseline, saving families US$119 per year, with each cookstove reducing CO2 emissions by approximately 3.5 tons per year (their recent update to the study found these savings to be robust for 3 years and counting, with 98% of the stoves still in use). This study was peer-reviewed and published in the world’s leading economics journal, The American Economic Review (AER).

Learn more at burnstoves.com. 

ABOUT the EIB

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals.

EIB Global is the EIB Group’s specialised arm devoted to increasing the impact of international partnerships and development finance, and a key partner in Global Gateway. We aim to support €100 billion of investment by the end of 2027, around one third of the overall target of this EU initiative. With Team Europe, EIB Global fosters strong, focused partnerships, alongside fellow development finance institutions and civil society. EIB Global brings the Group closer to local people, companies and institutions through our offices around the world.

The EIB Group aims to embed gender equality and in particular women’s economic empowerment in its business model and is also committed to driving gender equality in its workplace. The EIB financed a total of 63 projects across the globe in 2023 that significantly contributed to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, providing €5.8 billion of investment, more than half of which also supported climate action.