Low-cost interventions to reduce emissions and fuel consumption in open wood fires in rural communities: Evidence from field surveys

Sun24, a US-based non-profit organization, sponsored a campaign to train women leaders active in a local Anglican diocese on how to cook using rockbeds, a technique that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and wood consumption.

Those women returned to their communities – containing about 9200 families – and conducted trainings at local parishes.

A random sample of 1362 households from those communities was surveyed to help researchers understand the effectiveness of the training campaign.

The survey indicated that 67% of surveyed families were aware of rockbeds. Of those, 85% had installed them at home and continued to use them for many months after first hearing about them.

The findings also show that “nearly all users express a high degree of satisfaction with rockbeds” and that people who were trained in their use by Sun24 or the women leaders were three times as likely to use rockbeds daily than people who heard about them by word of mouth.

Researchers estimate that each adopter of rockbeds can reduce annual emissions by about 480 of carbon dioxide-equivalent.

Very low implementation costs make the use of rockbeds a cost-effective greenhouse gas mitigation strategy, at about USD 0.06 per ton of CO₂e over five years.