A loan helped to help rural families access clean cooking fuel and crop fertilizer through sustainable biodigesters.


Atec Biodigesters's story

This loan may have higher risk but higher impact. Learn more here.

The Problem
In Cambodia, illness resulting from smoke inhalation kills 14,000 people a year, predominantly women and children. Traditional cooking fuel such as wood and charcoal is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive due to deforestation. These fuel types are also associated with a number of hazards including toxic fume and black soot emissions, posing substantial risks to human health and well-being.

The Solution
ATEC, an impact enterprise that operates in Cambodia, created a biodigester that converts manure and bio-waste (human, kitchen and green waste) into clean biogas and organic fertilizer. For a typical Cambodian rural farming family with 2-3 livestock, a single ATEC biodigester system can provide enough biogas to meet all daily cooking needs as well as high-quality organic fertilizer for 1 hectare of rice cultivation. The biodigester system is delivered with a twin cookstove and rice cooker that run on the biogas created by the system. In addition, biodigesters create a smoke-free cooking environment, producing positive impact on respiratory health.

Since 2016 ATEC has distributed over 500 biodigesters across the Asia-Pacific. A video on their work is here.

Loan Use
The Kiva loan will be used as a guarantee so that CMK, a microfinance institution, can provide loans for the biodigestors to buyers that otherwise would not qualify. In Cambodia, all MFI loans require land title as collateral, which has a much larger value than the biodigester loan. The kiva loan will enable ATEC to provide a more accessible finance product to customers, expanding their reach and impact.


This loan is special because:

it provides rural families with access to sustainable fuel and fertilizer to help increase household income.



Loan details


Lenders and lending teams




Loan details