Accelerating Production and the Demand for Sustainable Charcoal
Deforestation and forest degradation are arguably Malawi’s greatest threat to sustained development, as they both negatively impact the lives and adaptive capacity of every Malawian household in multiple ways, limit economic development and undermine hard-fought development gains. Deforestation and degradation constitute Malawi’s single largest source of GHG emissions (GoM, National GHG Inventory System, 2019). And while Malawi’s per capita emissions are still quite low, deforestation and degradation multiply the impacts of climate change, leaving households, communities and the nation less resilient to climate change.
Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests (MCHF) is a five-year climate change activity designed to support the Government of Malawi to address the growing charcoal-led deforestation crisis. Co-funded by USAID and UKaid, MCHF promotes Nature Based Solutions to protect, sustainably manage and restore ecosystem functionality in a manner that supports households, communities and the nation to adapt to climate change.
When the weekend rolls around, you might find Helbert Thondoya at the club. In Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, thousands of people hit the nightclubs to party, dance, and eat braai, but Thondoya is not there to dance. He’s there to sell the owners on the concept of sustainably produced charcoal. As local influencers, he says bar and club owners can play an important role in spreading awareness about legal licensed charcoal, which is becoming an increasingly viable source of energy for cooking in Malawi.
“Normally, I target the illegal charcoal vendors,” Thondoya explains. “Our people have known for a long time that charcoal production is harmful for Malawi’s natural forests. But they don’t know about any alternatives.”
In Malawi, wood fuels — charcoal and firewood — are the primary source of cooking energy for the vast majority of the population. Three of four urban households use illegal and unsustainably produced charcoal as their primary source of cooking energy. This paradigm, triggered by the lack of a reliable energy source and widespread poverty, has resulted in massive deforestation across Malawi and exacerbates issues related to food security, economic growth, and health.
As head of sales and marketing for Kawandama Hills Plantation (KHP) — one of seven legal charcoal producers in Malawi — Helbert Thondoya’s job is to find ways to get KHP’s charcoal in as many kitchens as possible. To help KHP improve its business model and navigate the obstacles of meeting the growing demand for legal charcoal, the USAID and UKaid-funded Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests (MCHF) program created an accelerator program in partnership with Malawi innovation and business incubator mHub. Between March 2020 and October 2021, 18 renewable energy firms and start-ups participated in the MCHF Accelerator Program, gaining new skills, mentorship, and valuable opportunities to establish linkages between beneficiary enterprises, potential financiers, and other value chain actors.
-Vincent Kumwenda, mHub’s Executive Officer.
Team of Distributors: ZASOLAR
Lilongwe-based renewable energy company, ZASOLAR was one of the firms that participated in the startup growth accelerator. Since 2019, the social enterprise has focused on solar energy solutions and small-scale water pumps for underserved rural areas in Malawi. In the MCHF’s Accelerator Program, ZASOLAR’s founder, Fishani Msiska, learned about the existence of legal licensed charcoal and became a supplier of Kawandama Hills Plantation’s legal licensed charcoal.
“We are a young team and understanding the approach to creating a good business plan and the forecasting and modeling tools helps us to set up this business around our products. The MCHF accelerator program has helped us to sharpen our skills in finance and marketing,” says Msiska.
Currently, KHP’s sustainable charcoal accounts for just 5% of the company’s revenue, but Msiska expects to see it represent half of ZASOLAR’s sales within the next five years. Between April and August 2021, ZASOLAR sold 3 MT of legal licensed charcoal, which equates to approximately 1,075 days of household charcoal consumption. ZASOLAR uses a door-to-door delivery model in Lilongwe’s Area 49- making the product readily accessible to the consumers.
“I grew up in rural Malawi using kerosene and charcoal, and I’ve seen how unsustainable sources of energy can cause harm. We all need to be sustainable in the way we use energy in our homes, and seeing myself as part of a solution motivates me to continue,” he says.
ECO-Change Enterprise
In a different neighborhood, Eco-Change Enterprise (ECE) is also marketing KHP charcoal. The start-up was founded in 2020 by Mwawi Chirwa to create awareness and community involvement around the use of sustainable charcoal and improved cook stoves. Thanks to the MCHF Accelerator Program, Chirwa established a relationship with KHP. In just a six-month period, ECE sold 6 MT of legal licensed charcoal (2,150 days of household consumption). In addition to sustainable charcoal from KHP, ECE sells briquettes made from waste materials and improved cook stoves.
Thanks to the MCHF acceleration program, Chirwa improved operations at ECE. “With the mentorship, we improved bookkeeping and do more effective marketing. Before, I had no idea how to do marketing and find new customers, and never felt comfortable with interacting with new clients,” says Chirwa. Since then, ECE has reached 700 new households with KHP legal licensed charcoal.
As ZASOLAR and ECE ramp up marketing of KHP’s legal licensed charcoal, the standout challenge remains to be matching production with demand. KHPs 6,500-hectare parcel of land is located in the Viphya Plantation in Northern Malawi. KHP cultivates the Corymbia citriodora tree and uses the leaves to distill an essential oil which it exports to the United Kingdom for use in the production of insect repellent. To make use of the waste wood product, KHP applied for and obtained the Government’s first charcoal production license in 2015. KHP supplies approximately 1,000 bags of charcoal every week, and at present is able to undercut the illegal charcoal market prices by 20–30 percent. Still, KHP is confident that it could produce and distribute much more legal licensed charcoal, by making productive use of offcuts, if they had the capital needed to increase their production capacity.
In an effort to secure financing to increase production and market-based sales of their legal licensed charcoal KHP signed a performance-based grant worth more than $110,000 USD with MCHF, which will help KHP to increase production and sales from 300 metric tons per year to 1,000 metric tons per year, essentially tripling production.
“We are thinking big, our plan is to increase everything. We want to reach everyone in Malawi,” explains Helbert Thondoya, KHP Marketing and Sales Manager.
This blog was originally posted on the Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests Medium page.
Nicholas J. Parkinson
Nicholas J. Parkinson is a communications specialist involved in several projects including MCHF in Malawi. Nicholas is a former journalist with 10+ years of experience in NGO communications, reporting, and writing in South America and East and West Africa.
