News

Leadership Series

The business of clean cooking is evolving into a viable, sustainable industry. To highlight some of the innovations, investments, and business models driving this change, the Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) is interviewing leaders of companies working across the clean cooking sector.

Read more below, including insights from the leadership team of India’s largest clean cooking company, the creators of the first commercially scalable biodigestors in South East Asia, and the CEO who led Circle Gas to make the largest private equity deal in the clean cooking sector.

If you’d like to suggest an executive to be featured as part of this ongoing series, please contact CCA’s Communications team at comms@cleancooking.org.

Imperative: Delivering High-Quality Carbon Projects to Scale Up Clean Cooking

Imperative develops and operates high-quality carbon credit projects around the world, including for clean cooking solutions. The Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) spoke with Imperative CEO Scobie Mackay about the organization’s “boots on the ground” approach and the opportunities and challenges he sees in the clean cooking carbon sector.

ICE: The Billion-Ton Carbon Reduction Opportunity of Clean Cooking

Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) offers some of the world’s largest markets to trade and clear energy and environmental products. CCA spoke with Gordon Bennett, Managing Director of Utility Markets and Head of Environmental Markets, about ICE’s involvement in clean cooking carbon markets and their importance in a sustainable energy transition.

Giraffe Bioenergy: Building a Cassava-to-Ethanol Ecosystem in East Africa

Giraffe Bioenergy is a Kenya-based clean cooking startup focused on scaling the domestic production of cassava for ethanol cooking fuel and for food. CCA spoke with Dr. Linda Davis, CEO of Giraffe Bioenergy, about the company’s mission, its unique value proposition, its business-to-business model, and more.

Envirofit: Leveraging Carbon Markets and Innovation to Enhance Integrity and Impact

Founded in 2003, Envirofit is a global company whose products and technology serve over 15 million people with clean cooking solutions fueled by gas and biomass. Envirofit recently received authorization for the first clean cooking project to transfer carbon credits from Ghana to Switzerland under Article 6 of the Paris Climate Agreement. CCA spoke with Envirofit Co-founder and President Tim Bauer about the project in Ghana and discussed how Envirofit has changed over its 20+ years.

Gold Standard: Setting New Benchmarks for Carbon Finance in Clean Cooking

Gold Standard is a not-for-profit working to catalyze more ambitious climate action to achieve the global goals through robust standards and verified impacts. The organization’s focus is on impact rather than a specific mechanism, meaning their standards can support the issuance of carbon credits and other financial tools. Margaret Kim, CEO of Gold Standard, spoke with CCA about the organization’s new metered methodology and what they’ve learned working in the clean cooking space the past 20 years. 

C-Quest Capital: New CEO to Focus on Carbon Reduction, Innovation, and Impact

Founded in 2008, C-Quest Capital (C-Quest) develops and implements clean energy projects that significantly reduce global carbon emissions. With operations in 21 countries, C-Quest’s focus includes cleaner cooking, efficient lighting, methane avoidance, and technology development. CCA spoke with C-Quest’s new CEO Jules Kortenhorst about what’s in store for the organization and how the former Rocky Mountain Institute CEO and member of the Dutch parliament envisions the future of carbon markets for clean cooking.

Bboxx: Scaling LPG Access Across Africa and Beyond

Bboxx is a data-driven platform that provides innovative technologies and financing for energy access for millions of people across Africa. Through a range of clean energy products, Bboxx is catalyzing economic development and making progress on the Global Goals. CCA spoke with Louis De Muylder, Head of Bboxx Cook, the clean cooking product line of Bboxx, about the organization’s progression as a clean cooking company, flagship products and technologies, and successes in scaling clean cooking gas across Africa and beyond.

PowerUP: Scaling Clean Cooking Through Carbon Markets

PowerUP is a clean-tech start-up based in Uganda. It uses carbon finance to deliver affordable, tech-enabled electric cookstoves to customers in low- and middle-income countries.

Modern Cooking Facility for Africa: Accelerating a Green Transition in Clean Cooking

The Modern Cooking Facility for Africa (MCFA) is an innovative financing instrument established by the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (Nefco), which incentivizes private companies to develop and sell clean cooking technologies. Funded by Sweden and the European Union, MCFA is currently capitalized at EUR 45 million and plans to open a new EUR 16 million funding round in November 2023 for companies in seven countries across Africa.

UpEnergy: Leveraging Carbon Markets to Combat Energy Poverty and Climate Change

UpEnergy is a social enterprise offering access to technologies, including cleaner cooking solutions, to low-income communities. With an international team based in Uganda, UpEnergy invests in developing strong local teams that work closely with the communities they serve to ensure closely monitored climate impact.

Mwangaza Light: Expanding First-time Access to Cleaner Cooking in Rural Kenya

Mwangaza Light is a faith-based social enterprise that partners with churches to enhance energy access, gender equality, and climate action in Kenya. Launched in 2014, the company is both women-founded and women-led. As a last-mile distributor, Mwangaza Light specializes in reaching underserved markets with clean cooking and solar solutions. To date, Mwangaza Light has served about 60,000 households with biomass cookstoves and/or solar home systems.

BioLite: Delivering Energy Access to Millions

BioLite manufactures and distributes affordable, durable, off-grid products for cooking, lighting, and charging electrical devices across over 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

XpressGas: LPG for All Ghanaians

Founded in 2010, XpressGas Ghana Limited (XpressGas) provides liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to households, institutions, and businesses. A Ghanaian-owned company, XpressGas aims to make LPG available, accessible, and affordable, and thus a better alternative to the solid fuel that 75 percent of Ghanaians rely on. In 2021, XpressGas successfully raised USD $6 million in equity and debt from the impact investing group Investisseurs & Partenaires and the Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries to increase LPG penetration and access.

BioMassters: A Tailored Approach with Vast Potential

Established in 2020, BioMassters Ltd. is a Rwandan company that produces pellet fuel out of biomass waste and supplies modern pellet stoves. BioMassters aims to provide an affordable, user-friendly, low-carbon cooking solution that is uniquely tailored to customers in urban Rwanda and beyond, while building a profitable, sustainable business.

KOKO Networks: Delivering Solutions, Expanding Trust

Launched in late-2019 after five years of R&D and human-centered design, KOKO Networks (KOKO) is a clean cooking technology company serving more than 550,000 urban households in Kenya. KOKO’s innovative, tech-enabled model is undercutting demand for polluting cooking fuels like charcoal and kerosene that can contribute to deforestation and climate change. Despite shocks to the economy from COVID-19 and rising inflation, KOKO’s clean fuel network has grown beyond Nairobi to other Kenyan cities including Mombasa, Kisumu, and Nakuru, and uptake is accelerating.

Bidhaa Sasa: Leveraging Social Networks to Reach Last-Mile Consumers – Even During a Pandemic

Bidhaa Sasa, which means “products now!” in Swahili, is a last-mile distribution company, operating in Kenya and Uganda. The company distributes a range of household consumer goods directly to customers, most of whom are women working on small farms. Since launching in 2015, Bidhaa Sasa has sold more than 100,000 products, serving more than 40,000 households. The company plans to expand its operations in both Kenya and Uganda.

African Clean Energy: Transforming How Families Cook

African Clean Energy (ACE), a social enterprise that produces and distributes solar-biomass hybrid energy systems in developing countries, has sold over 60,000 cookstoves and employed nearly 250 people globally since launching in 2011. Recently, ACE became re-certified as a B Corporation (B Corp) for meeting the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance.

Sistema.bio: A Global Leader in Biogas Technology

Since 2010, Sistema.bio has provided clean cooking technology, training, and financing to 30,000 smallholder farms across Latin America, India, and East Africa through partnerships, carbon offset programs and direct sales to farmers.

HomeBiogas: The Circular Economy Meets Clean Cooking

HomeBiogas, an Israel-based biogas system developer, was recently listed on the Israeli stock exchange in an IPO valued at $94 million. CCA spoke with HomeBiogas CEO Oshik Efrati and Executive Chairman Boaz Schweiger.

PayGo Energy: Striking Strategic Partnerships to Scale up Clean Cooking

PayGo is an early innovator in Pay-as-you-go smart meters for liquified petroleum gas. PayGo CEO, Nick Quintong, spoke with CCA about the future of the company and their contribution to scaling up clean cooking solutions.

From Cookstove Designer to Leading African Manufacturing Company: An Interview with BURN Founder and CEO Peter Scott

A CCA Venture Catalyst portfolio company, BURN, a leading Kenya-based cookstove manufacturer, is raising US$7 million of debt and equity in a Series C round to scale-up its operations. Founder and CEO Peter Scott recently spoke with Peter George, Senior Director of Private Sector and Investment, about BURN’s exciting growth prospects.

Bringing Innovation to Biogas: An Interview with Inclusive Energy Ltd. Managing Director Vijay Bhopal

After recently closing their Seed B funding round and bringing their total funding to USD $1.25 million, CCA spoke with Inclusive Energy Ltd. Managing Director Vijay Bhopal about the company’s growth prospects.

ASAT/SSM: Turning Simple Stoves High-Tech

CCA spoke with the CEOs of Advanced Studies in Appropriate Technology Lab and the Zhejiang Huiwenmei Stove Company about their long partnership and the jointly-developed Jet-Flame, a new accessory that improves combustion in wood-burning stoves.

Greenway Appliances: Scaling to New Markets

Co-founded by Neha Juneja (2019 Clean Cooking Alliance Woman Entrepreneur of the Year) and Ankit Mathur in 2011, Greenway Appliances has grown from a small start-up to India’s largest manufacturer of biomass cookstoves. CCA spoke with Juneja, Mathur, and recently named CEO Achal Mehra about the future of Greenway and the impacts of COVID-19 on their business.

Circle Gas: Clean Cooking’s Largest Private Equity Deal to Date

In the second of a series of conversations with clean cooking industry leaders, CCA spoke with Volker Schultz, CEO of Circle Gas Limited, about the company’s recent acquisition of KopaTech’s smart meter technology that integrates pay-as-you-go options with LPG.

ATEC Biodigesters: From Start-up to Scale

In the first of a series of conversations with clean cooking industry leaders, CCA spoke with Ben Jeffreys, CEO of ATEC Biodigesters International, an Australian firm that produces, sells, and distributes the first commercially scalable biodigester in Southeast Asia.