Cook stove and clean cooking solution standard enforcement launches

SNV Ethiopia and Ethiopian Standard Agency launch Clean Cook stove and Clean Cooking Solution, Performance Requirements and Test Methods (ES 6085: 2019) document enforcement.

Researchers, private actors, development partners, representatives from Consumers’ associations attended the launching ceremony. The implementation of this standard is expected to transform the clean cooking sector by setting a minimum benchmark with wide-reaching implicationS on improving human health, protecting the environment and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Furthermore, the standard contributes to enhancing economies of design such as innovation, product and service quality, production and delivery. The standard is anticipated to serve as the basis for national policies and programmes on cookstoves, while also incentivising manufacturers and developers to improve stove quality and performance. The standard provides three protocols to test and report the emissions, efficiency, safety, and durability of cookstoves in a lab setting. The Standard Test Sequence is a protocol to measure thermal efficiency, fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and optionally black carbon.

In his opening remarks Yilma Mengistu, Director of Standard Preparation Directorate (ESA), promised that “Ethiopian Standards Agency will keep familiarising the standard and continue providing technical capacity building to support the enforcement of the standard“.  ESA is mandated to develop standards and establish a system that enables to check whether goods and services are in compliance with the required standards, also promised in familiarising the standard.

Mesfin Tadesse, Deputy Country Director of SNV, also stated that the launch event was organised to pledge commitment from all the stakeholders to actively engage in the enforcement of the standard, reach the wider stakeholder community s to spread the benefit of the standard and at the same time to kick off the enforcement process.

At the event, stakeholders vowed to implement the standard via, public institutions and development partners through promotion/advocacy, producers through getting their stoves/products evaluated as per the requirement set, consumers’ associations and consumers through demanding for quality clean cooking products. SNV Ethiopia has also started preliminary works to implement the standard on biogas stoves and biogas Injera Mitad/stoves.

In Ethiopia, more than 93% of households use biomass fuel for cooking and baking using inefficient end-user devices. Reliance on inefficient biomass cookstoves and fuels leads to health problems (emphysema, cataracts, cancer, heart disease, etc.) and economic burdens that impact women and girls, particularly because cooking and fuel collection largely remain women’s responsibility. Promotion of clean cooking is one of the mechanisms to mitigate the problem. Addressing the issue of clean cooking will avert the adverse effects of solid biomass fuel use. Moreover, it will have a positive impact on improving the performance and quality of the stoves and ensuring sustainability and competitive market.

Strengthening Enabling Environment for Clean Cooking Sector (SEECCS) project is a project being implemented by SNV in partnership with Ethiopian Forest and Climate Change Commission (EFCCC) with the financial support from RVO (Dutch government) to address the problem.

SEECCS aims to strengthen the enabling environment of the clean cooking sector in Ethiopia with interventions around organisational and institutional capacity development and sector facilitation. One of the activities of the project is to develop up-to-date clean cooking solution standard.