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Getting Clean Cooking Distributors Closer to Carbon Finance
PaygOps partners in the Clean Cooking sector offer exciting carbon credit mechanisms that are helping different actors in the value chain benefit from it. Discover how PaygOps features can support key processes for streamlined data collection and exchange.
Clean Cooking presents exciting opportunities for carbon finance investments as no other industry, given it yields measurable emission reductions while delivering tangible social and health benefits to underserved communities, perfectly aligning with the objectives of sustainable development (SDGs) and climate action. To put its impact in perspective, a clean cookstove alone reduces at least 1 ton of CO2 per year, or roughly twice as much as a solar kit, while advancing the SDGs of health, education, gender equality and poverty reduction which, as stated by the renowned carbon offset standard Gold Standard, "simply cannot be achieved without helping people around the world adapt their cooking practices."
Integrating clean cooking initiatives into carbon finance mechanisms can effectively drive investments towards scalable solutions that address multiple global challenges simultaneously. However, setting up a carbon credit project can be resource-intensive and time-consuming, leaving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the sector with very limited possibilities to enter the carbon market. As a reference, the costs to validate a carbon credit project oscillate between 12,000 and 20,000 US dollars (GOGLA Carbon Finance webinar, 2023).
With this in mind, PaygOps partners and key players in the clean cooking space have implemented innovative carbon credit projects and mechanisms that are bringing benefits to various stakeholders, from last-mile distributors to end users.
ATEC, the innovative manufacturer and distributor of clean cooking solutions, leverages IoT sensors in their flagship eCook induction stoves to digitally track key usage data in real time through their proprietary dMRV data platform, connected via API with Gold Standard, allowing for 100% digital verification and issuance of carbon credits. The eCook is Paygo-enabled by OpenPAYGO™ Token, the widely adopted Paygo token generation system developed by SolarisLab. What’s more, the stove is integrated with OpenPAYGO™ Metrics, a crucial component allowing for a more optimised and cost-effective data exchange between the device and the dMRV data platform.
Supamoto, an esteemed partner using PaygOps for sales, lease and after-sales management, includes an IoT sensor in their smart cookstoves that allows for real-time data monitoring, exchange and verification on their blockchain-based platform powered by IXO. According to Supamoto’s CEO and co-founder, Mattias Ohlson, “this digital MRV platform creates the highest-quality carbon credits based on the Gold Standard “Metered and Measured” methodology. Buyers can purchase either a “digital twin”, which over time produces carbon credits as it is used in real life, or carbon tokens directly from other stoves, representing 1 kg of CO2 mitigated.” PaygOps supports Supamoto’s endeavours by providing field agents with the flexible features they need to efficiently reach more households with their impactful smart stove.
BioLite, the Climate Neutral certified manufacturer of clean energy solutions, has put in place the Carbon Partnership Program, an initiative that allows distributors of BioLite’s high-efficiency charcoal stoves in emerging markets to gain access to the financial benefits of the carbon market, without having to develop a carbon credit project themselves. Distributors who effectively capture and share end-user product registration data to BioLite can purchase cookstoves at a subsidised wholesale cost, which is passed to the end-user in the form of lower retail price, furthering uptake of clean cooking technologies and helping distributors grow their businesses.
“BioLite is able to offer this unique distributor and end-user focused program with some of the most efficient stoves in the market because of the value our stoves continue to generate in the voluntary carbon market, despite how bumpy the road was for the VCM across 2023. Households using improved clean cookstoves have been independently verified by academic researchers to reliably offset between 1.75-3.5 tons annually, while also driving myriad co-benefits across many SDGs. Robust data collection tools drive improved data quality and trust in the VCM, helping BioLite to continue achieving measurable impact in the communities where we work.”
Mike Golomb, Associate Director of Clean Cooking at BioLite
Backing these initiatives, PaygOps, the flexible last-mile management software developed by Solaris Offgrid, can support last-mile distributors of clean cooking technologies -using PaygOps- by enabling enhanced management and custom data monitoring, through a comprehensive ecosystem of features, such as custom forms, customised dashboards, and others, that the LMDs can leverage for the collection of the necessary data to carry out the reporting, thus becoming a key partner facilitating processes between the distribution partners and manufacturers.
Leveraging PaygOps to Report Carbon Emissions
PaygOps flexible features can become a great asset to distributors in both collecting and exporting the data needed to participate in carbon credit projects. Let’s explore how:
Custom forms, for example, is an advanced functionality that allows distributors to create forms with a tailored set of questions directly on the platform, in order to collect crucial customer data and leverage it for credit scoring, after-sales and, in this case, the valuable data needed for a carbon project. A distributor of BioLite technologies, for instance, can use custom forms -instead of pen and paper- to collect the end-user registration data, which will automatically be stored on the platform. The distributor is then able to export the .CSV file and send it to BioLite, who can use it to enrol end-users and stoves in their carbon registry, representing a way to streamline a key step in their Carbon Partnership program.
Moreover, distributors can take their monitoring and reporting to the next level with PaygOps Customised Dashboards, the advanced feature that allows for designing, customising and visualising state-of-the-art dashboards in the platform, enabling users to thoroughly monitor and quickly access the data most relevant to carbon credit data, such as saved emissions, expected incentives, and virtually any data that they consider key to their day-to-day operations (for a full demonstration, we invite you to watch this webinar). Additionally, this powerful feature can integrate with any third-party tool to allow remote access, meaning that instead of exporting a .CSV file, distributors could easily allow manufacturers to remotely access and monitor the corresponding data for validation.
In addition, OpenPAYGO™ tools supported by PaygOps and developed by SolarisLab can be instrumental in optimising the data retrieval and exchange, which can be useful for companies supplying IoT-enabled clean cooking equipment, such as ATEC and Supamoto, in their carbon finance efforts. For example, as previously mentioned, ATEC's eCook stove is Paygo-enabled by OpenPAYGO™ Token and integrates seamlessly with OpenPAYGO™ Metrics, an open-source API format that is enabling ATEC to send usage-based data from the stoves to their management platform in an optimised and compact way, supporting them to monitor key data for the carbon credit mechanism in real time, while reducing costs (learn more about how OpenPAYGO™ Metrics can help companies to monitor CO2 emissions here).
Working Towards a Greater Impact
Putting in place carbon credit projects like the ones described here can generate a substantial impact in the sector, especially when established players help stream the revenue to other actors in the value chain who otherwise wouldn't be able to engage in the carbon markets. Digital tools like PaygOps make the execution and flow of information possible and easier for distributors and manufacturers, while open-source protocols like the OpenPAYGO™ Metrics are key to standardise and optimise usage data, which helps to maximise the monitoring of IoT-enabled cookstoves, reducing costs for companies in the process.
All these efforts are a right step for the sector to reach the ultimate goal: improve the livelihoods of the 2.3 billion people that lack access to clean cooking, by providing them with more affordable and fuel-efficient stoves that reduce smoke and toxic emissions, and bring the widespread benefits of this essential sector to families in underserved communities.
Discover more about PaygOps’ impact in our latest conversation with the co-founders. Get a demo of PaygOps here, or further explore the advantages of PaygOps for clean cooking here.
If you want to learn more about our partners’ impact and carbon credit projects, click the following links:
About PaygOps:
Solaris Offgrid’s flagship fintech software, PaygOps, enables credit to be provided to the bottom of the pyramid for essential products like solar home systems, agri-inputs, water pumps. The end customers pay incrementally via mobile money under a PAYGO model. PaygOps provides the software infrastructure to manage the contracts, payments and related communication for the local retailers of such products. Our affordable modular and interoperable solution connects energy and payment methods (Pay-as-you-go, mobile money) to a suite of enterprise applications that allows the smooth management of lease financing and field operations, while providing key financial data and metrics to investors.