The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (“Alliance”), The Gold Standard Foundation (“Gold Standard”) and Nexus Carbon For Development (“Nexus”) have joined forces to create the Clean Cooking Loan Fund (the “CCLF”), a not-for-profit loan fund that provides cost effective loans to clean cookstove and fuels enterprises to help finance carbon certification costs. For a full description of the CCLF download the CCLF concept note.

The founders of Envirofit International, Tim Bauer, Nathan Lorenz and Bryan Willson, were named 2013s Energy and Environment Innovators by The Economist magazine. The 10-year-old social enterprise, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, was recognised for the global impact of its approach that pioneered the clean cookstove marketplace.

Envirofit is the global leader in the design, development, and delivery of high performing clean energy cookstoves that that combat air pollution in developing nations. It has grown from its initial concept in the Colorado State University Engines and Energy Conversion Lab to a small pilot project in India with one stove, and from there on to become a worldwide company with multiple different models and 700,000 cookstoves sold across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

According to the World Health Organisation, cooking over an open fire inside the home is the equivalent smoke exposure to inhaling two packs of cigarettes a day. Nearly half the world’s population, three billion people, cook over inefficient wood- or dung-burning open fires inside their homes, which contributes to four million deaths a year – more than HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.

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