As we prepare for great announcements because SustainCert (the validation and verification body for Gold Standard) just finalised our fifth Performance review, and the issuance of 12,540 new carbon credits is imminent, we review what we have achieved during the year 2023.

With 105 schools included under the Project Activity “Institutional Improved Cook Stoves in Uganda” and 376 institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) installed, continuously monitored and repaired of different saucepan capacities (from 30 litres to 600 litres), 15,186 tons of firewood were saved throughout the whole year, as schools successfully moved away from traditional cooking practices.

For visual purposes only (but the information we love to compare our data to) is foresters’s rule of thumb when measuring standing trees: if you can hug a tree and your fingers just overlap it, it will be about 40 cm. “diameter breast height”, roughly one ton of wet firewood. Therefore, let’s imagine 15,186 of those trees still standing today, because schools avoided cutting them down during 2023, with their energy efficient cooking technology! That is a gorgeous achievement.

There are approximately 22,000 schools in Uganda still using traditional 3-stone fires to prepare the children’s daily meals. By simply changing their cooking practices and using IICS, it would mean 3,181,828 trees could be saved every year…..That is a gorgeous dream.