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Project Partners

Bondhu Case Study

Project Partner: Bangladesh Bondhu Foundation

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Bondhu 1 — A woman cooks over a newly installed Bondhu Chula stove

Project overview

With our expertise in designing and registering carbon finance projects, alongside our unrivalled network of clients around the world, Climate Impact Partners worked with the Bangladesh Bondhu Foundation (BONDHU) and UNICEF to access carbon finance for a pioneering cookstove project in Bangladesh.

As a founding partner of the Bondu Chula Project, our expert team supported project implementation and led the marketing and sales of the resulting carbon credits, providing essential income to make the project possible.

As a result, the Bondhu Chula project has provided 300,000 households with improved cookstoves and reduces on average 200,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year. By reducing harmful indoor smoke and toxic emissions, this Gold Standard project not only helps tackle climate change but also improves health and livelihoods for whole communities.

The Bangladesh Bondhu Foundation

The team at Climate Impact Partners was integral to the success of our project. Their experts had helped develop the Gold Standard cookstove project methodology we used. This meant they were well placed to assist us with project optimization, as well as securing the finance we needed through carbon credit generation and sales. They continue to provide us with the ongoing carbon market knowledge and expertise we need to expand.

The Bangladesh Bondhu Foundation

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What support did Climate Impact Partners provide?

In 2014, BONDHU embarked on its first cookstove project. The organization wanted to develop a sustainable program that would create local jobs and help the local community, by improving health and reducing fuel costs. However, the cost of manufacturing and installing improved cookstoves was more than rural communities in Bangladesh could afford.

With Climate Impact Partners’ expertise, BONDHU was able to access carbon finance to subsidize the cost of stoves and make the project possible. We assisted with project design, and purchased the initial carbon credits issued, providing immediate finance for the project to scale.

In 2022, we helped Bondhu Chula expand again, by financing the distribution of a further 200,000 stoves. As a result, the Bondhu program will be able to make a tangible difference in the lives of another million people across Bangladesh. We continue to work closely with the project to deliver a positive impact on communities and secure buyers for the project’s high quality carbon credits.

Person in bright yellow clothing tending a small wood-fired stove with glowing orange fire and a metal pot on top, surrounded by a cluttered workshop.

How does the carbon finance project work?

In Bangladesh only 19% of the 35 million households have access to clean cooking technology. The smoke produced from cooking over open fires inside the house contributes to more than 100,000 deaths every year.

BONDHU trains local entrepreneurs to manufacture, install, and maintain energy-efficient cookstoves that reduce wood consumption by 50% and vent smoke out of the house through a built-in chimney. The carbon reductions are measured and independently verified, and carbon credits are issued by Gold Standard. Corporates purchase these credits to compensate for their own unavoidable emissions, providing essential carbon finance to the project.

This carbon finance enables BONDHU to subsidize the cost of installing improved stoves by 50%, making them affordable to more families. It also supports the training and aftersales service to ensure stoves are correctly installed, maintained, and used.

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The benefit of carbon finance

Since its start, BONDHU has installed over 5 million Bondhu Chula stoves, reduced 15 million tonnes of CO2, and created employment for 6,300 entrepreneurs who build, sell, and maintain the stoves. The carbon finance, expertise and support from Climate Impact Partners, has been a key part of this achievement, enabling the successful installation of stoves for 500,000 families who would otherwise be unable to afford to them.

To access carbon finance, optimizing and monitoring stove use is essential. BONDHU is starting a new training program for a team of technicians to visit houses monthly, cleaning chimneys and providing support to cookstove users. This new training program will create around 15,000 jobs (the majority for women) across the country. Following our successful registration of the project’s expansion in 2022, the Bondhu Chula project can continue this positive impact for people and the climate.

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