Living Standards
Clean energy
Many tea gardens and smallholder farmers use traditional cooking on open fires, which can cause eye and respiratory problems as a result of indoor smoke.
Clean-cook stoves burn less wood, emit less smoke, and reduce the cost and the time required to collect firewood – work often done by women. These stoves also help protect the environment and reduce health risks by producing clean, affordable energy – a key priority for providing decent housing.
In Assam, India we worked with Mercy Corps to train local potters to make, sell, repair and maintain clay clean-cook stoves in tea gardens. This provides the potters with additional household earnings.
In Kenya, we partnered with ClimateCare to help families in tea communities gain access to Burn Jikokoa, a cleaner and more efficient cookstove. Burn Jikokoa improves indoor air quality and reduces toxic smoke exposure in the home while at the same time cutting carbon emissions and helping to tackle climate change. The money people save on fuel costs can be directed to creating a better future for their children. This project also helps us offset our carbon emissions.
What we have achieved
- 46,683 people adopted or gained access to clean and efficient energy across our supply chain Reduced air pollution in people’s homes.
- Decreased deforestation near tea communities by reducing the need to cut down trees for cooking food or boiling water.
Raghuram’s story
Raghuram is a temporary worker on a tea estate in Assam. His wife works on the estate as a permanent tea plucker. They live on the estate with their children in the same house that Raghuram grew up in.
Raghuram and his wife heard about the clean stoves at a community meeting where they saw how the stove worked in practice. They decided to buy a single pot stove.
"My family is so far happy with it; it needs less firewood and therefore costs less. It is also repaired for free by the potters who made it, which is a reassurance."