Spark+ Africa Fund, a partnership of Switzerland-based Enabling Qapital and the Dutch NGO Stichting Modern Cooking (SMC), recently lent USD 3.5 million to The African Stove Company (TASC), which is based in Jersey, to sell 90,000 cookstoves in rural Zambia. Spark+ Africa raised the funds from the sale of “several million tons of emissions reductions” on a voluntary basis to an unidentified firm.
Burn Manufacturing, a Kenya-based cookstove maker in which Spark+ holds quasi-equity, will supply the stoves. The mission of Burn is to reduce the use of wood and charcoal by designing and manufacturing stoves that use electricity and fuels such as agricultural byproducts and LPG.
The mission of TASC is to “finance and develop high-impact climate mitigation projects,” leveraging carbon trading to reduce emissions while generating financial returns. Over 10 years, the company has distributed 800,000 cookstoves and 30,000 water filters in Australia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Spark+ Africa, which has a volume of USD 70 million, finances companies dedicated to reducing the environmental impacts of cooking in sub-Saharan Africa. It has completed six transactions from its launch in 2022 through June 2023.
By Elva Montelongo, Research Associate
Sources and Additional Sources
Spark+ Africa press release on 2023 investment in TASC
https://www.sparkafricafund.com/_files/ugd/551d1b_56d33c024c674ae9aa06a93b98ddb925.pdf
Spark+ Africa press release on 2022 investment in Burn
https://www.sparkafricafund.com/_files/ugd/551d1b_fe3f607793f849d499ea30bc22ee5aee.pdf
TASC homepage
https://tasc.je/
Burn Manufacturing homepage
https://www.burnstoves.com/
Enabling Qapital homepage
https://enabling.ch/
SMC homepage
https://www.moderncooking.org/
Spark+ Africa fund homepage
https://www.sparkafricafund.com/
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