Nigeria’s clean cooking challenge goes beyond stoves – BURN

Nigeria’s transition to clean cooking solutions is gaining momentum, and Wednesday’s media roundtable in Lagos made one thing clear: achieving the country’s 2030 universal clean cooking target will require more than just distributing stoves.

BURN Manufacturing Nigeria, the world’s largest modern cookstove company, hosted journalists, government officials, and industry experts to a roundtable at L’Eola Hotel in Ikeja. The session, themed Unlocking Nigeria’s Clean Cooking Future: Carbon Markets, Tax Policy and Local Markets is aimed at discussing how carbon finance, tax incentives, and manufacturing standards can accelerate the adoption of clean cooking technologies across Africa’s most populous nation.

The conversation came at a time which Etulan Ikpoki, BURN’s Country Manager, described as a “pivotal moment” for Nigeria’s clean cooking sector: the launch of the Nigeria Carbon Market Activation Policy, upcoming tax reforms in 2026, and renewed focus on standards enforcement.

“Clean cooking is one of the few climate solutions Nigeria can scale quickly, credibly, and at the household level,” Ikpoki said during her opening presentation.

Smoke in the kitchen, pressure on the forests

The scale of the problem set the tone early.

Across Africa, hundreds of millions still rely on firewood and charcoal for cooking. In Nigeria alone, household air pollution contributes to tens of thousands of premature deaths every year, mostly among women and children. On the environmental side, unsustainable biomass use continues to drive deforestation, especially around urban centres.

BURN says it has distributed over 500,000 clean cookstoves across Nigeria since 2018, reaching more than two million people across all 36 states. Its Kano factory currently produces about 35,000 stoves per month and employs over 700 people, half of whom are women. The company plans to expand capacity significantly as demand grows.

But Ikpoki was careful not to frame the issue as a corporate success story.

“This isn’t about selling appliances,” she said. “It’s about health, time, money, and dignity in the home. If clean cooking stays expensive or inaccessible, people will stick to what they know, even if it’s dangerous.”

Carbon credits: how BURN turns stoves into funding

Beyond policy and enforcement, carbon finance emerged as a major lever for scale.

Chidi Ohaji, BURN’s B2C Manager, walked journalists through how the company uses carbon credits to subsidise stove prices for low-income households. The idea is simple: when a household switches from firewood or charcoal to a more efficient stove, it reduces carbon emissions.

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Those reductions are measured, verified, and sold as carbon credits to companies looking to offset their own emissions. That revenue, Ohaji said, is what allows BURN to cut stove prices by as much as 60 to 100 percent for families who otherwise couldn’t afford them.

But carbon markets only work when trust exists in the data, in the verification process, and in the regulatory system behind them.

Why clean stoves struggle to compete

One of the clearest threads across the panel was affordability, not just for consumers, but for manufacturers too.

Speakers explained that clean cookstoves still face import duties, VAT charges, and inconsistent tariff treatment, even when produced locally. Meanwhile, dirtier fuels benefit from decades of subsidy structures and entrenched supply chains. The result: cleaner options struggle to compete, despite long-term savings for households.

Chijoke Odo, Indirect Tax Partner at Deloitte, said fiscal policy could shift that balance quickly.

“If government wants companies to manufacture locally, create jobs, and meet climate goals, tax policy has to reflect that,” he said.

Several speakers argued that clean cookstoves should be officially recognized as essential household goods, which would qualify them for tax exemptions and make them more affordable overnight.

What clean cooking looks like inside real homes

Following the technical discussions, BURN demonstrated its product lineup, including the ECOA wood, charcoal, electric, ethanol, and gas cookstoves. Ikpoki revealed that the new ECOA Electric Pro 200 will launch in Nigeria in the coming months alongside other products.

The most compelling part of the session came through customer testimonials shared in BURN’s briefing materials. Stories from users across Katsina, Bauchi, Ekiti, Kwara, and Plateau states illustrated the tangible impact of switching to efficient cookstoves.

By the end of the roundtable, one thing was clear: Nigeria’s clean cooking challenge isn’t technical anymore. The stoves work. The demand exists. The financing models are proven.

For BURN, the next phase means scaling its Kano factory, protecting product quality, and working with the government on policy reforms. For Nigeria, it means deciding whether clean cooking remains a niche intervention or becomes the default for millions of households still cooking over open fires.

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