How clean cooking could sustain Kenyan schools on carbon credits

Earnings from the sale of carbon credits that are generated when schools migrate to cleaner cooking methods could be adequate to sustain clean cooking in learning institutions.

The funds could be critical, especially for government-owned schools where there are concerns that they would have to heavily rely on the state to sustain the running of clean cooking solutions, such as replenishing cooking gas when it runs out or paying electricity bills. 

The government is working on a plan to significantly reduce the amount of firewood and charcoal used to cook food in schools and instead use clean cooking modalities such as cooking gas.

Today, according to the Ministry of Energy, 70 per cent of Kenyans use fuels such as firewood and charcoal to fire their kitchens.

The State plans to install cooking gas infrastructure in various public institutions including schools, universities and hospitals, to reduce the cutting down of trees and scale down use of fossil fuels.

Part of the plan also includes scaling up use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) among households.

The plan, according to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra), will play a part in increasing the LPG per capita consumption in the country to 15 kilogrammes from the current seven kilogrammes by 2027.

“We are currently importing 330,000 tonnes of LPG annually and our target is one million tonnes in the next three years,” Epra director general Daniel Kiptoo told Financial Standard, adding that the government plans to install LPG infrastructure in schools including storage tanks and piping to the school kitchens.

He noted that an increase in usage of LPG would help in taming retail prices.

“By putting a bullet (LPG storage tank) in every public institution (universities, TVET institutions, secondary, primary schools and hospitals), demand will go up and the country will benefit from economies of scale,” he said.

Sustainable alternative

Experts in climate change note that transitioning schools from using firewood to cooking gas, bioethanol and other cleaner cooking fuels could generate carbon credits. If sold, these carbon credits could help the shift in cooking fuels among schools become sustainable with the earnings from sale of carbon credits used to refill LPG or replenish other clean cooking fuel used by the institutions.

“At the moment, the way the government is going about transitioning schools to clean cooking is that it is subsidising. This (subsidising) has proved not viable. If you continuously subsidise, it eventually becomes a burden for the government,” said Sophie Odupoy, head of public affairs at Koko Networks, which has been transitioning households from kerosene and charcoal to bioethanol.

“Carbon credits provide an alternative, in the long term, they provide the avenues through which schools will be able to transition sustainably. The challenge is that the schools are owned by the government and this could present challenges of how the carbon revenue would be split. There is no clarity.”

The Ministry of Energy has in the recent past started implementing steam cooking technology in schools that significantly reduce the amount of firewood or charcoal, with plans to also transition in fuels.

The government plans to construct 183 centralised kitchens for urban and peri-urban schools with a capacity of 30,000 learners to cater to around 5.5 million learners.

Eventually, the ministry plans to cover 10 million learners by 2030 through rollout of both centralised and decentralised kitchens.

The National Council for Nomadic Education in Kenya (Naconek) has recently projected that the switch to climate-friendly cooking methods could raise up to Sh55 billion each year from sale of carbon credits. 

“Naconek helped a school in Nairobi run a pilot on steam cooking technology. The institution used to burn 2,500 kilograms of firewood every day to cook,” said Verst Carbon chief executive Brian Nyangena.

Naconek helped the school to transition to a steam cooking technology that currently uses firewood but plans are underway to transition to LPG or electricity.

“The amount of firewood consumed has reduced to 500 kilos,” Mr Nyangena said.

“There was also food wastage, whereby it would cook 500 kilogrammes of rice every week and lose 20 percent of that was going to waste as with traditional cooking when using firewood, the rice would stick on the cooking vessel. When using steam technology that does not happen.”

He said the kitchen would mostly use steam cooking technology powered by either electricity or LPG.

“This will help achieve the two goals of reducing greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere and help the government meet its targets as well as reduce cutting down trees by schools, which cut about 10 million trees to sustain their kitchens,” he said.

“At the heart of this transition, what is important are the learners, we need to be able to support them to get the food and nutrition that they need and have them go to school so that the educational goals are achieved.”

Globally, there are 418 million school-going children enjoying school meals, 60 million of them in Africa. 

The World Food Programme is among the key players supporting school meals, supporting 20 million children globally and 50 percent in Africa

“School meals raise interest from different quarters. Because of this, there is a lot of discussion on the funding for the meals themselves but when it comes to clean cooking for the meals that are being funded, this has usually been ignored,” said Geoffrey Ndegwa, Energy for Food Security Advisor at World Food Programme (WFP).

“About 80 per cent of the meals are prepared using open fires which contributes to a lot of localised deforestation because the firewood is collected around these schools and we know the impact this has on the environment but also the cooks who cook food.

He cited research in Malawi showed that many school cooks hardly work beyond three years because suffer respiratory illnesses

“School meals are quite important because, statistics show, for every $1r invested in a child through school meals, it translates to a future $9 in terms of improved education, performance and employability for the child,” said Ndegwa.

“Thus when talking about school meals, we should do it not just the meals but also how they are being prepared.”

He said that WFP is looking to develop a model that can be replicated by governments and agencies to cover more schools.

“We are starting a model in Tanzania where we will partner with the government to introduce electric cooking in schools that are connected to the national grid. In future we will target schools in offgrid areas,” he said.

“We will be generating carbon credits because this is one of the cleanest cooking solutions. The revenues from the carbon credits will be reinvested back into the product to support scale up,” said Ndegwa.

“Our aim is that in three years, we can replicate this in 5,000 schools globally and impact 10 million children. We project that the project will require an investment of $100 million, which we are still fundraising for.”

Zero emissions

Many countries and organisations have committed to work towards being net zero by 2050, a goal that aims at striking a balance between the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the environment with what is removed.

This will be possible by largely ensuring that carbon emissions produced are offset by equivalent amounts of carbon removed.

Elizabeth Chege, energy efficiency specialist at Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) noted that this goal cannot be achieved without clean cooking in schools.

“Clean cooking is the one thing that is needed for countries to meet their net-zero climate goals. So we cannot make it to 2050 without having clean cooking as one of the solutions,” she said.

Zeph Kivungi, regional partnerships manager, Africa, at the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, noted that the attempts that are currently being made to transition schools to clean cooking are falling short due to the small scale of the projects so far.

“The transition of schools to clean cooking is not working because the numbers we are working with are low...we are trying some 200 schools to see how it goes.

“We should move that to where we have an entire spectrum. We should understand what we need to do to have a carbon asset when it comes to transitioning schools,” he said, adding that players should have conversations about these assets including who would offer the best prices early enough.

“We will then be able to say that we are no longer doing pilot projects. Let the people see the business case. If this is addressed, we will unleash the capital for that. Since all the pieces are in place, we should not take years to do this.”