Case Study
India
Environment
SootSwap: A mobile application to monitor use and incentivize the adoption of clean cooking
technologies
Partners
- Nexleaf Analytics
- Project Surya
- The Energy and Resources
Institute, New Delhi (TERI)
2012 Statistics
- Life expectancy: 67.1 years
- Population: 1.2 billion (2013 est.)
- GDP per capita: USD$3,900
- Internet penetration: 11.4%
- Mobile penetration: 71%
Sources: CIA World Factbook
(https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-worldfactbook/geos/in.html). Mobile penetration data
provided by Informa UK Limited and based on market
intelligence. Internet penetration data provided by
www.internetworldstats.com and based on data
published by Nielsen Online, the International
Telecommunications Union and other trustworthy
sources..
“Mobile phones running
SootSwap will enable
families to receive money
for taking actions that will
both reduce carbon emissions and also improve
their health.”
– Nithya Ramanathan,
President of Nexleaf Analytics
The SootSwap project demonstrates how mobile phones can aid in advancing the economic, health
and environmental objectives of individuals and communities. SootSwap provides an affordable,
reliable, cell phone-based, monitoring device to enable widespread participation in a voluntary carbon
market when individuals use clean cookstoves versus traditional biomass burning cookstoves. The
Wireless Reach pilot project was initiated to support Project Surya, a global multi-organization initiative
focused on helping to mitigate climate change by replacing traditional cookstoves with cleaner
technologies using an innovative sensing application.
Challenge
• Approximately three billion people—about 40 percent of the world’s population—depend on
traditional, cookstoves that use fuels like firewood, cow dung and crop residues for their cooking
needs. The Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 estimates that four million people die each year as
a result of inhaling the smoke and soot produced by cooking over traditional cookstoves.1
• Switching to clean cookstoves can reduce the amount of firewood used in open fires, as well as the
amount of smoke indoors and outdoors. This could lead to improved health for the women and
children who have shown to be the most exposed to the smoke.
• At a cost of approximately US$50 – US$100 (Rs. 2700/- - Rs. 5500/-) each, clean cookstoves are
currently unaffordable for the estimated three billion people worldwide living on less than US$2 per
day. Registered carbon credit programs are beginning to provide financial incentives for reducing
carbon emissions through the use of clean cookstoves. Estimates suggest that a family could earn
enough money selling carbon credits on the carbon market to directly finance, through a loan, the
purchase price of a clean cookstove within two to five years. However, it is difficult and expensive to
verify the reduction in carbon emissions produced by clean cookstoves, making it a challenge to
apply carbon credits to the use of improved cooking technologies.
Solution
• To address this challenge of accurately and affordably verifying the use of a clean cookstove,
SootSwap, a state-of-the-art mobile-phone-based temperature sensing application has been
developed.
• The SootSwap system includes a mobile-phone-based temperature sensing application and a
thermal sensor that connects to a Brew® CDMA or Android phone. Each time the cookstove is fired
up, the temperature increase activates the sensor. The temperature data is wirelessly uploaded from
the cell phone to a server via a mobile broadband network. Analysis of the temperature data
indicates the number of times a stove is used and the duration of each use, enabling remote
verification of stove usage. This capability will create an opportunity to make data available to carbon
market investors as proof of reduction in carbon emissions. Investors can then purchase the
validated credits and transmit money directly to the families using the clean cookstoves.
• Over the past three years, SootSwap has been tested and validated in the laboratory, as well as
through a pilot project involving more than 100 rural Indian homes in villages around Jagdishpur, a
town in Uttar Pradesh.
• In the next phase, the SootSwap application will be used with Project Surya’s initiative, called
the Climate Credit Pilot Project, or C2P2, in India. The initiative aims to demonstrate the
benefits of adoption of clean cookstoves in 2,000 households in a pilot phase by linking, for
the first time, carbon credits to black carbon (or soot) emissions.
• Participating families in the pilot will receive a clean cookstove, facilitated through bank
finance, and a cell phone equipped with a temperature sensor and the SootSwap application.
SootSwap will track the usage of the clean cookstove and wirelessly transmit this data to a
centralized database.
• This usage data of the clean cookstove generated through the SootSwap application will be
made available to carbon market investors as proof of the reduction in carbon emissions.
Investors will be able to purchase the validated credits and transmit money directly to the
families using the clean cookstoves. Thus the cell phones running the SootSwap application
will be used to audit and trade carbon credits, and the monetary returns to the users can
provide an incentive for the broad adoption of clean cookstoves.
Impact
• Laboratory and field studies of traditional and clean stoves have shown that the SootSwap
application sensor is reliable in determining cooking times. It can use this information to
provide an estimate of the carbon credits derived from the usage of the clean cookstove.
• It is expected that the potential for earnings from sale of carbon credits will motivate more
families to use clean cookstoves, and ultimately may help lead to the broad adoption of
cleaner technologies.
• Plans call for scaling the project to 100,000 stoves by the end of 2015, which would positively
affect 500,000 people and produce direct annual savings of up to 300,000 tons of carbon
dioxide equivalent.
Project Partners
• Nexleaf Analytics, a lead Project Surya partner, is a non-profit institution which developed the
SootSwap sensor and mobile application, conducted laboratory and field tests, and is collaborating with TERI on the SootSwap project’s implementation.
Project staff testing the SootSwap application in
the field laboratory in the village.
• Project Surya was founded by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of San
Diego, TERI and Nexleaf Analytics with sponsorship by the United Nations Environment
Program. It now has over a dozen institutions around the world as collaborators. Project Surya
aims to mitigate the regional impacts of global warming with clean-cooking technologies and
using innovative sensing technologies.
• The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi (TERI), a lead Project Surya partner, is an
independent non-profit research institution focused on energy, environment and sustainable
development and devoted to efficient and sustainable use of natural resources. TERI provided
extensive training to the users of the cookstoves on the mobile phone based sensors and is
collaborating with Nexleaf on the project’s implementation.
• Qualcomm Wireless Reach has funded the SootSwap mobile application and provides project
management support and wireless expertise.
1
Lim S.S and many others, 2012, A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990-2010:
a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, Lancet, 380: 2224-60.
Qualcomm Wireless Reach
Qualcomm believes access to 3G and next-generation mobile technologies can improve people’s lives. Qualcomm Wireless Reach is a
strategic program that brings wireless technology to underserved communities globally. By working with partners, Wireless Reach invests
in projects that foster entrepreneurship, aid in public safety, enhance the delivery of health care, enrich teaching and learning and
improve environmental sustainability. For more information please visit www.qualcomm.com/wirelessreach.
May 2013