BURN, a leading clean cooking appliance manufacturer, distributor, and carbon project developer, has secured a 15 million-dollar investment from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The investment was announced during the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Washington.
According to EIB Group President Nadia Calvino, the investment is meant to finance development through innovation, which will strengthen communities, especially by protecting the health of women and their families.
“It will have a positive impact on the climate by lowering carbon emissions. Investments in potentially transformative projects like this expansion of affordable clean cooking for more than a million households in Africa by BURN is just the kind of initiative that the European Union aims to support more of under our Global Gateway Initiative,” added Nadia.
This funding will accelerate BURN’s efforts to manufacture and distribute its IoT-enabled ECOA electric cooking appliances to over 1 million households in East Africa.
The ECOA Induction Cooker (IDC) is equipped with innovative Pay As You Cook (PAYC) technology, integrated directly with mobile money payment systems and the ECOA Mobile App. This allows users to pay small amounts via their mobile phones, gradually acquiring their cooking devices through daily or weekly instalments, achieving full ownership within a year. The ECOA IDC is bundled with a high-quality 3-piece stainless steel induction cookware set that is fully manufactured in Kenya.
ECOA IDC generates high-integrity carbon credits by using integrated cellular-enabled IoT technology, which allows for real-time monitoring of energy usage.
Each ECOA IDC reduces 2.5 tonnes of carbon emissions annually and will contribute to EIB’s climate action, gender equality, and economic development objectives.
Speaking from Washington, BURN Founder and CEO Peter Scott stated that BURN has already brought PAYC electric cooking solutions to thousands of households in Kenya and Tanzania that previously relied on traditional charcoal stoves. He further added that the investment will help transition over a million low-income households to cooking with electricity powered by renewable energy.
To date, BURN has distributed over 5 million clean cookstoves across Africa, transforming the lives of over 25 million people and preventing 26 million tons of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere.
