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How might we use social business to improve health in low-income communities? Read the challenge brief

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Improved Cooking Stoves

Produce and sell cooking stoves that consume less energy and spread less particles, diminishing the risk of respiratory diseases on women.
Respiratory diseases are the 2nd cause of mortality in Caldas, and one of its causes is the widespread use of wood-stoves in rural areas. 

These stoves, that would be inspired from the Grameen Shakti model, would be produced locally, and locals would be trained to produce and maintain them.
The Improved Cooking Stoves (ICS) consume up to 50% less energy - in this case, wood - and are designed not to reject the smoke in the environment.

How do you envision this idea making money?

The sale, construction and installation of these ICS would be a sustainable business.

How does this idea create social impact, particularly around improving health?

The main direct impact of these stoves would be to decrease the amount of smoke inhaled by the women who cook, and their family (stoves are generally located near or in the house), therefore decreasing the risk for respiratory diseases.

How does this idea add social value at every step of the process?

Additional social impact would be created through the business itself, which would create jobs and skills within local population.
It would also have a positive environmental impact, as it would reduce the amount of wood used for cooking.

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Meena Kadri's reply to Russell Jelinek's comment

Meena Kadri

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July 12, 2011, 09:25PM
I'm remembering here a colleague who went to a development conference in Asia and mentioned it was full of cooking stove designs aimed at low-income communities. Her viewpoint was that folks had concentrated closely on repetitive product design but little thought had gone into the product ecosystem – distribution, pricing models, joint ownership?, incentivising, mind-set change, etc Solar lighting seems to have done better in this space with examples like D.Light coming to mind which may provide some inspiration here: http://www.dlightdesign.com/
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Meena Kadri

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July 12, 2011, 03:01AM
Great stuff – and I've taken the liberty of adding the link to the Grameen Shakti model on your post in case others are keen to check it out.

So has anyone got any great ideas for popularising & incentivising the uptake of such stoves? And could they be linked to other Concepts around food supply which have been posted already to help us connect the dots?
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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Russell Jelinek's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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July 12, 2011, 02:11PM
Use such stoves in the community kitchens / canteens concepts? It uses less energy (thus a better initial investment for a social business) and is less harmful (other incentive). Using it in these communal places might as well increase its popularity within the communities.
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Johan Löfström

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July 12, 2011, 08:32AM
It could be valuable to also look at the different food storing technologies, that require no electricty, or solar powered refrigeration and similar. To reduce the need to buy food each day. Look at the Zeer-pot for instance, works great in hot and arid climates. But there are potential also in humid climates such as Colombia to use small wind and sun-equipment to cool down peoples food.
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