Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Our project, "Triple Impact," deploys an integrated, community-focused circular economy system, using robust appropriate technology in Ethiopia to permanently remove carbon dioxide, drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and build climate resilience in vulnerable communities. The core innovation is a closed-loop model that connects biochar-producing pyrolysis cookstoves, container-based eco-sanitation dry toilets, and biochar-fertilizer production.

Our climate impact comes from the conversion of sustainable sourced biomass and organic waste into high-quality biochar through pyrolysis cookstoves. This stable form of carbon is then processed into biochar-enhanced compost using waste from dry toilets together with other organic waste. By hot composting this mixture is turned into a safe and nutrient-rich fertilizer and applied to agricultural soils, where it sequesters carbon for centuries while restoring soil fertility, yields and climate-resilience of smallholder agriculture. 

The system is actively removing and reducing emissions. Building on a 5-year research foundation and a successful 2022-2024 pilot with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), we have already established a local stove workshop and sold over 200 clean,biochar-producing cookstoves, validating the technology and market demand. We are now ready for transformative scale.

Our measurable impact is threefold:
1.  Carbon Removal: By 2029, we aim to sequester over 20,000 tons of CO₂ as biochar-compost in soils.
2.  Emission Reduction: The system will avoid an estimated 40,000 tons of CO₂e by halting deforestation (via 60% less household fuelwood use) and preventing methane from organic waste and pit latrines.
3.  Beyond Carbon Benefits: We will produce 50,000 tons of biochar-fertilizer to restore over 2,600 hectares of degraded land, improve health for tens of thousands by eliminating indoor smoke, and creating more than 4000 local green jobs within the next 10 years.
The scalability of this model is its key strength. Designed for decentralized, community-focused implementation, the current bottleneck is the enabling infrastructure. Support from the Keeling Curve Prize would be catalytic, providing essential funding to build a scaled stove production facility together with an improved biochar-fertilizer production plant. This will allow us to scale from hundreds to tens of thousands of stoves, replicating a proven blueprint across Ethiopia and further countries of the Global South.
Winning the Keeling Curve Prize would provide more than the vital $50,000 award; it would offer global recognition at a critical juncture. This support would directly accelerate our next milestone: building the infrastructure needed to achieve climate-relevant impact, improving the lives of thousands and bending the emissions curve in Ethiopia and beyond.

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['Reduces GHGs (e.g., projects that reduce sources of GHGs, such as through efficiency or other changes in consumption)', 'Removes/stores GHGs (e.g., projects that capture, sequester, or otherwise enhance the "sinks" that accumulate and store GHGs)']

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Our "Triple Impact" system is designed for and by Ethiopia's most climate-vulnerable communities, with benefits targeting three key groups: women and children in low-income households, slum residents, and smallholder farmers.
For Women and Children: Our clean pyrolysis cookstoves replace cooking on open fires. By providing smokeless kitchens, we tackle a leading cause of premature death in Ethiopia, drastically reducing respiratory and eye diseases for the women who cook and the children who live alongside them. In a country, with 138 Million people, from which more than 90% cook on open fire, our target group is huge.
For Slum Residents: We provide affordable, container-based eco-sanitation as a service.. This intervention directly addresses a critical lack of access to improved sanitation for tens of millions of Ethiopians, reducing waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid, which are a major threat to child mortality in these communities.
For Smallholder Farmers: Our locally produced biochar-fertilizer is a powerful tool for climate adaptation. It restores soil fertility, increases yields while replacing expensive imported fertilizers, and significantly increases soil water-holding capacity. This builds resilience against droughts and erratic rains, directly protecting farmers' livelihoods and food security in a changing climate.

A Community-based Model: To ensure long-term ownership and relevance, our model is deeply localized. We will establish an Ethiopian subsidiary where >95% of employees will be Ethiopians, with priority hiring from the vulnerable communities we serve. This creates dignified green jobs and embeds the project within the local social and economic fabric, ensuring solutions are co-created and sustainable.

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