How EcoSafi secured 10x average market pricing for a cookstove project with a rating

What they said

Secured market-leading premium pricing for a cookstove project at $35 since BeZero’s rating was assigned
Sold initial carbon credits in multi-year strip at 10x average market price¹
Rating increased demand and interest from buyers and investors

About EcoSafi

Role in market: Project Developer
Location: Kenya
Sector: Clean cookstove

Since the rating, we’ve seen a surge in interest as the market now knows our project has independently been vetted as high-quality. Even after nearly 20 years of working in carbon, reviewing BeZero’s methodology for rating household device projects has helped me to better understand how to incorporate best practices into our own carbon program.

Matt King, Chief Climate Officer EcoSafi

Challenge

The potential climate impact of shifting the 2.5 billion households in the Global South to clean and lower emission ways to cook is massive – outdated cookstoves using firewood or charcoal are responsible for approximately 2% of global emissions, matching the climate impact of global commercial aviation. To enable this transition, project developers have turned to climate and carbon finance, but recent concerns surrounding the quality and environmental integrity of these projects have driven down demand and prices for those offsets. While methodologies and practices are evolving in response to these criticisms, project developers already have ways to generate high-integrity emission reductions today.

EcoSafi, a clean cooking fuel utility in East Africa, is one such company. They rely on robust data collection, peer-reviewed research, and science-backed inputs to build and distribute clean gasifying cookstoves alongside their sustainable biomass fuel pellets. But business as usual in an environment of uncertainty wasn’t enough. To give credit buyers greater assurance of quality, they needed external validation.

Rating

In May 2024, BeZero Carbon independently assigned credits issued by EcoSafi’s clean cooking project in Kenya an ‘A’ rating, meaning a high likelihood of achieving 1 tonne of CO₂e removed. The assessment, conducted by experts in environmental technology, energy efficiency and energy policy, leveraged curated sector-specific datasets and proprietary models. The headline rating, available on BeZero’s public platform, provided the market with an independent assessment of EcoSafi’s project, and increased its visibility to a wider pool of investors. As of December 2024, the project held the only ‘A’ rating within the cookstoves sub-sector, with no other cookstoves project rating higher than ‘BB’.

Impact

Since the rating was assigned, EcoSafi secured long-term credit offtakers at a market leading price of $35, more that 10X the average¹, and opened the door to ongoing conversations with buyers and investors who were previously “cookstove skeptical”. They’ve been able to secure multiple multi-year contracts at this high price, while opening new markets and partnerships that previously would have been impossible without this premium pricing and differentiation. As well as supporting premium pricing for their credits, EcoSafi reported that the rating drove higher demand as well, with sustained buyer interest in the months following the rating’s assignment. They also noted that the rigour in BeZero’s methodology and openness to communication helped them better understand underlying project risks which they’ve been able to implement into their own practices, and how to convey that quality to potential partners. This new standard for high-quality cookstove credits is helping reinvigorate a vital sector recovering from repeated scandal.

¹ Exchange- and project-based transactions for Gold Standard clean cooking carbon ranged from $2.22 to $4.15 per QC Intel for the week of November 25, 2024

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