Carbon offsets have delivered many millions of dollars to finance cookstoves, for better or worse–probably, alas, for worse. Since the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves was formed in 2010, so-called clean cookstoves distributed to poor people in the global south have been paid for, in part, with carbon offsets purchased by companies, western governments and private donors. You, for example, can buy carbon offsets generated by cookstoves in Rwanda.

But what are you buying? Carbon offsets are strange. They are, in essence, the certified absence of a colorless, odorless gas—CO2—or of other greenhouse gases, like black carbon, that cause climate change. The thing is, it’s hard to know whether a cookstove actually prevents the emissions of CO2 or black carbon. Was the cookstove used as directed? Did it last as long and operate as efficiently as expected? Maybe, but quite likely not. That’s unfortunate for the poor, who get broken or subpar stoves, and for governments or wealthy donors, whose well-intentioned efforts to help go for naught.

This is a problem that a small nonprofit called Nexleaf Analytics has begun to solve, by using Internet-of-things technology —low-cost sensors and cloud—to find out whether cookstoves are actually being used as directed.

Read the full article about carbon offsets in the cookstove sector by Marc Gunther at Nonprofit Chronicles.