Charcoal Briquette Enterprise Development: Lessons from the Harvest Fuel Initiative

Charcoal briquettes made from various types of biomass feedstock have the potential to displace unsustainably produced charcoal and significantly reduce biomass consumption, but there are several factors that need to be taken into consideration before scaling up briquetting enterprises. Both the business and technology aspects need to be fully developed and tested before any attempt at reaching scale is made. Some of the questions to consider include:

• How do we ensure that the briquettes produced are quality, clean burning products?
• How do we determine which cookstove technologies are most appropriate to use with charcoal briquettes?
• What are the consumer’s needs and how can we produce briquettes that people want to use?
• What are some potential business models that can be applied to briquette enterprises, and what tools and resources are needed for them to be sustainable?

Join the Winrock and U.S. EPA “Charcoal Briquette Enterprise Development” webinar on Wednesday, March 5^th to hear lessons learned from the Harvest Fuel Initiative’s business- and technology-driven partnership approach for scaling up carbonized briquettes as quality, sustainable, and viable alternatives to charcoal in East Africa. The Harvest Fuel Initiative is a collaboration between The Charcoal Project and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s D-Lab to promote biomass fuel alternatives and clean combustion technologies in the developing world.

Webinar participation is free. For the web portion, a high-speed internet connection is required. Please note the webinar technology has changed and you can now listen to audio through your computer.Additional log-in information will be provided upon registration.

For more information on this webinar, please contact:moderator@cookstovesandindoorair.org

Register today for the March 5th Webinar

Date: Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Time: 15:00 – 16:30 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)/Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which is 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)