How does the Alliance define “clean” and “efficient”?
Tracking progress towards 100M by 2020
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves developed a set of definitions for “clean” and “efficient” for the specific purpose of tracking progress towards our key milestone (100 million households adopting clean and efficient stoves and fuels by 2020).
These definitions, developed with feedback from our partners, are aligned with the interim tiered performance guidelines in the ISO International Workshop Agreement (IWA) developed in February 2012. The Alliance tracks progress for all stoves while requiring minimum tiers for stoves to contribute towards the Alliance targets for “clean” and “efficient”:
- Stoves/Fuels that meet Tier 2 for efficiency or higher will be counted as efficient;
- Stoves/Fuels that meet Tier 3 for indoor emissions or higher will be counted as clean, as it relates to potential health impacts; and
- Stoves/Fuels that meet Tier 3 for overall emissions or higher will be counted as clean, as it relates to potential for environmental impacts.
Note that Tier 4 is always the highest performing and most likely to achieve the greatest health or environment benefits.
This framework is currently being updated to reflect the latest scientific evidence, progress on standards development, and sector capacity; this process is being determined, but will involve significant partner engagement. The Alliance will continue to refine our metrics and measurement approaches to evaluating sector progress.
Full portfolio of Alliance and partner activities
Each part of Alliance’s portfolio of activities may have different criteria for performance, representing a broader range than these definitions. For example, some of the Alliance’s activities are not restricted to the Tiers defined above, some activities are even more restrictive. Alliance partners also have a broad range of goals. In order to reach 100 million households with a sustained level of adoption, our approach is to support a wide range of activities, while also raising the bar on stove performance over time as the sector matures.
We encourage partners to use the quantitative metrics and Tiers as the basis for communicating specific performance goals, rather than solely relying on terms like “improved,” “clean,” or “advanced.”