From Technology to Impact: Understanding and Measuring Behavior Change with Improved Biomass Cookstoves
Half the world cooks using biomass-fueled stoves. Improved biomass stoves represent an intersection of
opportunities to address health, environment, poverty, and gender concerns on a wide scale. However,
theories of change implicitly assume the behavior change that translates improved stove performance into
desired outcomes and impacts. Experience shows behavior change cannot be presumed. Household
stoves are nodes in a complex system, representing sites of interaction between the physical characteristics
of the device, user behavior and perceptions, and larger social and environmental relationships. As such,
the impacts of an improved stove are highly uncertain and may bear no relation to stove performance. This
uncertainty compels us to evaluate stoves not only for performance and impacts, but also for technology
uptake. Most stove evaluations lack an evaluation of technology uptake, and high-precision methods of
monitoring stove usage have only recently become feasible. I present an example of a randomized-control
trial that focuses on stove uptake in tandem with stove performance, illustrating the challenges of connecting
stove performance to impacts. I conclude with a proposal for a richer evaluation framework that should
be used to create the evidence base for scaling up improved stove deployments
