Clean Fuel Switch: Exploring the multiple benefits of biogas
University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)
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Abstract: Forty per cent of the world?s population burns wood, charcoal and animal dung (?biomass?) for their household?s cooking and heating. The resulting smoke pollutes the air, burdening families with disease. Indoor air pollution causes an estimated 2.2?4.2 million premature deaths worldwide each year. In Kenya, acute respiratory infections are responsible for an estimated 14,000 premature deaths per year, many attributed to household air pollution. In low-income countries, where access to electricity is expensive, unreliable or non-existent, the demand for cooking energy is rising in line with population trends, increasing pressure on already scarce wood resources. Kenya?s national forest cover had dwindled to around 8 per cent by 2016. As part of its government?s efforts to raise this figure to 10 per cent by 2022, a ban on charcoal production was put in place in 2018. However, more work is required to offer families alternatives to biomass burning, particularly those with least scope to adopt new fuels. In 2018 the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership joined forces with the science and healthcare company, AZ, to explore this problem. The resulting project sought to equip a low-income community in western Kenya with a clean, green alternative cooking fuel ? biogas ? and monitor how the resulting ?fuel shift? was perceived, trialled and ultimately embraced by its households.