A loan helped sell life-saving, low cost cookstoves that reduce fuel cost in Kenya by 50 to 80%.


Burn Manufacturing's story

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

See this video of BURN's impact, Saving Lives & Forests by Revolutionizing the Cookstove Sector

The majority of households in Sub-Saharan Africa rely on inefficient, low-quality traditional cookstoves and open fires that produce life-threatening smoke. These cookstoves emit harmful fumes that endanger people's health and create pollution in the environment. An estimated 2 million people globally, mostly women and children, die from respiratory diseases related to indoor cooking smoke each year. Moreover, it can cost as much as $500 per year to burn wood and charcoal for cooking.

Based in Kenya, BURN manufactures and distributes clean burning biomass cook stoves across Sub-Saharan Africa. The 700,000 cookstoves distributed to-date have saved families $164 million, reduced CO2 emissions by 3.1 million tons, and saved 1.9 million tons of wood from being deforested. Additionally, BURN has created more than 300 sustainable jobs. Individuals using BURN products have reported meaningful health benefits including a 54% reduction in sick days per household. 89% of customers attributed increased health benefits to less smoke in the house.

This Kiva loan of $100,000 will enable BURN to ramp up its manufacturing operations to 40,000 stoves per month for the holiday season and ensure that BURN is fully stocked through the 4 months of the year with strongest cookstove demand. This loan will help facilitate the distribution of 100,000 cookstoves over the next months to families in need, resulting in over $25 million in savings for the recipient households and over 1 million tons of CO2 emissions avoided over the lifetime of the
stoves.


This loan is special because:

It distributes low cost & efficient cookstoves to rural communities across Kenya



Loan details


Lenders and lending teams




Loan details