Original articleSawdust pellets, micro gasifying cook stoves and charcoal in urban Zambia: Understanding the value chain dynamics of improved cook stove initiatives Iva Peša Centre for F
Trang 1Original article
Sawdust pellets, micro gasifying cook stoves and charcoal in urban
Zambia: Understanding the value chain dynamics of improved cook
stove initiatives
Iva Peša
Centre for Frugal Innovation in Africa, African Studies Centre, Leiden University, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 4 October 2016
Revised 26 January 2017
Accepted 9 February 2017
Available online xxxx
Keywords:
Improved cook stoves
Charcoal
Market organisation
Consumer preference
a b s t r a c t
In urban Zambia one initiative for sustainable energy provision has been the introduction of micro gasi-fying cook stoves and sawdust pellets to replace cooking on charcoal From 2010 onward several com-mercial companies – with various organisational structures – have been trying to market these stoves
to low-income households, with varying degrees of success This paper will explore the value chain dynamics of these improved cook stove initiatives to see whether organisational set-up influences stove adoption and market penetration It is argued that initiatives to market improved cook stoves can, para-doxically, learn a lot from the existing charcoal value chain and its marketing structure Improved cook stove initiatives have to be understood within a technical, social and economic context, as people, mar-kets and locality matter and one size does not fit all
Ó 2017 The Author Published by Elsevier Ltd This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Introduction
Zambian urban cooking has been dominated by charcoal
(mala-sha) and iron braziers (mbaula) since at least the 1930s[14] Even if
among some wealthier households cooking on electricity has
gained sway, charcoal braziers are still retained as a backup in case
of electricity outages and for cooking ‘slow’ dishes, such as beans
or dried fish[6] Nonetheless, due to the health hazards posed by
indoor air pollution and the environmental effects of high levels
of deforestation, charcoal use has started to receive severe
criti-cism from various ‘social innovations’, which have aimed to
substi-tute charcoal with sawdust pellets and micro gasifying cook stoves
disseminated in Zambia since the 1970s, a new impetus was given
from 2010 onward when the combination of sawdust pellets and
micro gasifying cook stoves was first successfully marketed
(Interview with Mattias Ohlson, Lusaka, 01 October 2014) Several
commercial companies – in collaboration with NGOs, charity
foun-dations, donors and government institutions – have been trying to
market this technology to low-income households, claiming
envi-ronmental, health and financial benefits upon adoption (Interview
with Samuel Bell, Lusaka, 05 October 2014) The introduction and
promotion of ICS has been framed within discourses of ensuring
‘Sustainable Energy for All’ at the ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’
‘social entrepreneurship’, as they create ‘new models for the provi-sion of products and services that cater directly to basic human needs that remain unsatisfied by current economic or social insti-tutions’[24: p 243-4] Because ICS promotion primarily aims to create social, rather than purely economic, value, it requires novel business models, organisational structures and strategies[13] ICS promotion necessitates social innovation, which entails multi-stakeholder partnerships, networks and value chains, as well as innovations in organisational form and operational models[22] Yet attempts to promote ICS in urban Zambia have enjoyed varying degrees of success Zambia thus provides an excellent case
to study whether institutional infrastructure and organisational set-up influence the adoption of ICS initiatives [7] Looking at organisational aspects is important for understanding the adoption
of an innovation, because an innovation must always ‘integrate itself into a network of actors who take it up, support it, diffuse
the active participation of all those who have decided to develop
it ( .) [This is an] immense collective undertaking which assumes the active support of all participating actors’[3: p 208] It is useful
to follow the ICS value chain, as this ‘describes the full range of activities which are required to bring a product or service from conception, through the intermediary phases of production (involving a combination of physical transformation and the input
of various producer services), delivery to final consumers, and final
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2017.02.010
2213-1388/Ó 2017 The Author Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).
E-mail address: iva.pesa@history.ox.ac.uk
Contents lists available atScienceDirect
Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w e l s e v i e r c o m / l o c a t e / s e t a
Please cite this article in press as: Peša I Sawdust pellets, micro gasifying cook stoves and charcoal in urban Zambia: Understanding the value chain
Trang 2disposal after use’[15: p 8] Zambian examples endorse that ‘the
sustainable adoption of low-carbon technologies is conditioned
not only by the technologies themselves, and on how they are
pro-vided, but also depends on how processes of technology
develop-ment, financing, transfer and adoption connect with the
institutional infrastructures at the local level’[19] Whereas
tech-nologically Zambian ICS initiatives do not differ markedly from
one another, they do differ in organisational set-up and value chain
dynamics[16] It is therefore crucial to examine how initiatives to
introduce ICS attempt to ‘build the social structure of a market’
[20] Whereas one company has focused on becoming a
for-profit, self-sustaining business by marketing high-quality but
expensive stoves, another company has partnered with NGOs
and donors and has tried to serve the low-income market (www
different approaches, these initiatives face numerous struggles
This paper will explore the value chain dynamics of several ICS
ini-tiatives to see whether organisational set-up influences stove
adoption and market penetration
Initiatives to promote micro gasifying cook stoves and sawdust
pellets strongly denounce charcoal, labelling it the ‘old’, ‘unhealthy’
and ‘environmentally polluting’ fuel[28] Yet charcoal is the main
competitor to ICS adoption, as the charcoal value chain is organised
in a highly efficient manner and it generates livelihoods for
numer-ous people[12] ICS initiatives have not yet managed to replicate
such a value chain and this organisational limitation is the main
reason behind the non-adoption of ICS so far[8] Micro gasifying
cook stoves and sawdust pellets have insufficiently managed to
create their own value chains which can generate local
employ-ment and profits By adopting ICS, consumers would put charcoal
burners, transporters, retailers and market women out of business
[12] Thus, even though adopting sawdust pellets might save costs
when compared to cooking on charcoal, sawdust pellets have not
managed to socially construct a marketplace which is able to
com-pete with the moral economy of charcoal[8] Whilst sawdust
pel-lets and micro gasifying cook stoves might be economically
rational from an individual consumer perspective, they are not
rational when viewed from the perspective of the economic and
social logic of the market as a whole[10] The NGO SNV
under-stands this paradox and has tried to market ICS and charcoal
bri-quettes through the charcoal value chain (mbaula producers now
manufacture ICS and market women who sell charcoal additionally
offer charcoal briquettes) (
organisa-tional infrastructure of charcoal influences the adoption and
mar-keting of micro gasifying cook stoves and sawdust pellets
The approach taken in this paper differs from existing studies on
ICS, firstly by placing technology in a broader societal setting
ICS adoption ([1]warns for ‘technosaviorism’) Secondly, various
organisational approaches and alliances to promote ICS, which
can be more or less effective, are outlined, without suggesting that
there is one best practice (i.e a market-led approach or social
entrepreneurship) [7] Thirdly, it is suggested that economic
rationality and organisational efficiency might be located in
unex-pected places – that charcoal provides an example of an efficient
value chain, moral economy and market logic from which ICS
initia-tives have much to learn[8] ICS initiatives have to be understood
within a technical, organisational, social and economic context, as
people, markets and locality matter and one size does not fit all
[16] This paper is based on research conducted in Zambia, in the
cities of Kitwe and Lusaka, during September–November 2014
and July–September 2015 Next to a study of unpublished reports
and secondary literature, this research has relied heavily on
inter-views with representatives of ICS companies (social entrepreneurs),
ethnographic research among users and non-users of ICS
technolo-gies and a study of actors in the charcoal value chain.1The paper is organised as follows: The section ‘‘Organisational models for intro-ducing ICS in urban Zambia” will provide an overview of two distinct initiatives to promote ICS, focusing on their different organisational structure and questioning whether organisation, technology or busi-ness models influence market penetration ‘‘The Charcoal value chain
as a competitor to ICS adoption” examines the charcoal value chain to see how it influences ICS adoption The concluding section will bring ICS and charcoal together, analysing the importance of value chain dynamics to understand fuel adoption decisions The conclusion also reflects on the developmental relevance of this study and provides some suggestions for future research on ICS
Organisational models for introducing ICS in urban Zambia
From the 1930s onward, when fast rates of urbanisation made cooking on wood impractical, charcoal and braziers started to dominate Zambian urban cooking[9] Charcoal is easier to preserve and transport than wood logs, but to produce 1 kg of charcoal as much as 6–10 kg of wood are required[23] Charcoal has thus been blamed for widespread and rapid deforestation, as well as for other social ills, such as indoor air pollution and persistent poverty and marginalisation, especially of female charcoal users[28] Starting
in the 1970s universities, government departments and NGOs have experimented with alternatives to reduce charcoal use in Zambia Coal briquettes and various improved cook stoves (with more effi-cient combustion principles or less smoke production than mbaula stoves), such as the Kenya Ceramic Jiko, have been tried (Interview with John Banda, Kitwe, 21 November 2014) These initiatives were
of limited scope, though, remaining stuck in the test phase or reaching only a handful of households
In 2007 one environmentally minded Zambian social entrepre-neur noticed that the wood processing industry on the Copperbelt produced large amounts of sawdust waste, which has limited use
On a training course abroad he learnt that sawdust can be con-verted into cooking energy Realising the potential of sawdust waste as cooking energy, he got in touch with the Swedish Interna-tional Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), who have exper-tise in pelletising technologies (Interview with Sonta Kauti, Lusaka, 05 October 2014) SIDA contacted a Swedish company interested in pelletising sawdust in Zambia and together these Swedish and Zambian entrepreneurs started to experiment with producing fuel efficient sawdust pellets (Interview with Mattias Ohlson, Lusaka, 24 October 2014) In 2010, after prolonged exper-imentation and testing, the commercial company Emerging Cook-ing Solutions started to cater for 40 households: ‘By pelletizCook-ing agro- and forestry waste we upgrade unwanted waste to a 100% renewable biofuel – and sell it cheaper than the competing unsus-tainable alternative: Charcoal’ (http://emerging.se) The company has forged numerous partnerships, relying on funding from NGOs, charities and government institutions, to create a truly social inno-vation (http://emerging.se/partners/) Although the company aims
to reach financial self-sustainability, it equally pursues environ-mental, social and economic value creation[7,13] From the outset the target community consisted of low-income consumers in an area where charcoal use is high (St Anthony’s compound Kitwe; Interview with Mattias Ohlson, Lusaka, 24 October 2014) High-end Philips stoves (costing USD100) were marketed, but attempts were made to subsidise high stove costs through profits from pellet sales (http://www.africancleanenergy.com/) A charitable donation enabled subsidised stove sales for USD60 and payment in
1 Interviews have been conducted by the author in Lusaka and Kitwe in English and/or iciBemba Maria Kankondo and Lyness Mumba Lubemba provided research assistance and translated from iciBemba to English.
Please cite this article in press as: Peša I Sawdust pellets, micro gasifying cook stoves and charcoal in urban Zambia: Understanding the value chain
Trang 3installments allowed even low-income households to afford
expensive stoves (Interview with Sonta Kauti, Lusaka, 05 October
2014) Yet after 18 months sales lagged behind expected levels
and profits proved to be minimal or even non-existent The
com-pany shifted its focus from the secondary city of Kitwe to the
cap-ital city Lusaka Furthermore, middle-income households of
salaried employees, such as teachers and nurses, became a new
target market (Interview with Mattias Ohlson, Lusaka, 24 October
2014) Through payroll deduction these households could pay off
even the most expensive stoves in three installments Yet different
from the low-income market, middle-income households did not
use the stoves and pellets as a primary source of cooking energy,
but as a backup in case of electricity outages (Interview with
Joseph Lungu, Lusaka, 17 August 2015) Apart from this, the
com-pany discovered a distinct market niche in the production of larger
institutional stoves Restaurants, boarding schools, hospitals and
other institutions can experience marked cost reductions by
adopt-ing sawdust pellets, savadopt-ing up to 40% on fuel expenditure
(Inter-view with cook at Olympic Stadium, Lusaka, 17 August 2015)
Despite these shifts, the original low-income focus was not
aban-doned and the company rationale remained to ‘create and sustain
social and not just private value’[13: p 785], as institutional stove
sales and pellet sales to middle-income households were meant to
subsidise sales to low-income households Yet among low-income
households uptake of pellets and ICS remained very slow
(Inter-view with Mattias Ohlson, Kitwe, 14 August 2015)
Notwithstand-ing innovative financNotwithstand-ing models and marketNotwithstand-ing strategies
(including sales demonstrations in church groups and door to door
marketing), low-income consumers could not be sufficiently
con-vinced of the (economic) rationale for adopting sawdust pellets
and micro gasifying cook stoves (Interview with Bernadette
Mwaba, Kitwe, 27 October 2014) Users complained about issues
such as the flame being too hard and difficult to regulate, the
bat-tery running out or that the pellet stove is unsuitable for cooking
slow dishes, such as beans More importantly, low-income users
doubted whether cost savings from adopting sawdust pellets
would truly be as pronounced as the company claimed in its
mar-keting campaign When questioned, most users responded that
pellets and charcoal are approximately equally expensive, or even
claimed that charcoal is cheaper than sawdust pellets (Interviews
with households in St Anthony’s, Kitwe, 27 October 2014) Thus,
this social innovation failed to gain a solid market share among
the lowest-income consumers it initially intended to serve Even
though the company continues to serve middle-income and
insti-tutional markets, it is still struggling to gain inroads among
low-income households (Interview with Mattias Ohlson, Kitwe, 14
August 2015) (seeFig 1)
A different attempt to market micro gasifying cook stoves and
sawdust pellets was initiated by a Zimbabwean sawmill owner in
Kitwe, who teamed up with Norwegian environmentalists in 2009
to found a commercial company, Home Energy Ltd (Interview with
Nick O’Connor, Kitwe, 12 October 2014) After an initial
experimen-tation phase, Home Energy started marketing its stoves and pellets
at extremely low costs in 2014 This was possible because the
saw-mill owner produced an abundance of free sawdust waste and the
Norwegian engineers and marketing specialists designed a cheap,
well-functioning stove and business model (Interview with Terje
Hoel, Kitwe, 14 October 2014) Moreover, prison labour was used
to produce the stoves (sold at USD10-15, depending on the quality
and model) and the fuel was marketed at rock bottom prices
(ZMW13 for 13 kg of pellets, which is much cheaper than charcoal)2
was established in one of Kitwe’s low-income, high-density com-pounds (Chamboli) and innovative marketing techniques (including demonstrations, door to door marketing and community promotions) were deployed to promote the stoves and pellets (Interview with Vic-tor Nyirenda, Kitwe, 30 October 2014) The low prices and innovative marketing techniques make Home Energy a social innovation, which exclusively targets low-income households whilst simultaneously pursuing a range of environmental and health benefits Home Energy
is a social innovation in the organisational sense as well, as it has established a partnership between a for-profit social entrepreneur, a NGO from Norway, the Zambian government (forestry officers and prison staff) and other actors Integrated sector development is thus crucial: ‘Home Energy’s mission is to establish new cross cutting value chains for efficient and clean burning cookstoves and new value chains for cookstove fuel’ (www.aaaa.no/home-energy/about-us htm) Although the stove and pellet technology of Home Energy do not differ radically from that of Emerging Cooking Solutions, the organisational structure, production techniques and marketing strategies do Yet despite its focus on low-income households, Home Energy has had little success in penetrating this market The company withdrew its marketing container from Chamboli after six months, because sales proved disappointing and profits negligible (Interview with Nick O’Connor, Kitwe, 17 August 2015) Despite the low-cost strategy, households complained that the cost savings from adopting sawdust pellets were not pronounced enough Furthermore, con-sumers doubted that this social innovation would be there to stay and feared adopting a new technology in vain (Interviews at Chamboli Market, Kitwe, 30 October 2014) Two very different organisational approaches, by Emerging Cooking Solutions and Home Energy, thus faced similar market penetration challenges What can these two examples say about the importance of organisational structure for ICS adoption? After all, an organisational approach analyses ‘all the actors who seize the object or turn away from it and it highlights the points of articulation between the object and the more or less organised interests which it gives rise to’[2: p 205](seeFig 2) Entrepreneurship is about creating technological, economic and social value[27] Attempts to market ICS in urban Zambia can be seen as examples of social innovation, being a ‘novel solution to
a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues pri-marily to society as a whole rather than private individuals’[22: p 39] Sawdust pellets and micro gasifying cook stoves can generate environmental, economic and social benefits for consumers, by reducing CO2 emissions, indoor air pollution, saving costs and by establishing sustainable value chains This social innovation has employed ‘novel types of resources’ and has combined these in new ways to address complex social and environmental problems,
to serve low-income households and to build resources and capa-bilities [24: p 242] Furthermore, ICS technology is promoted through innovative organisational alliances, combining for-profit businesses, NGO efforts and government institutions Business effort alone proved insufficient to achieve desired results, as busi-nesses need ‘not only to rethink their resource and activity config-urations but also to develop and acquire new resources and capabilities and forge a multitude of relationships and alliances with local non-traditional ( .) partners’ to penetrate the low-income market[25: p 51] Because sawdust pellets and micro gasi-fying cook stoves are new (unfamiliar) technologies, both compa-nies had to engage in opportunity and market creation before social and economic benefits could be achieved [4: p 164] The introduction of a product or technology (ICS to replace charcoal)
to a consumer market does not automatically succeed, no matter how beneficial its value proposition is Consistent with the primar-ily social, rather than economic, goals of social innovation, the adoption of ICS relies ‘on building the social structure of a market wherein market participants ( .) [can] negotiate relationships
2
In October 2014 ZMW13 was approximately USD2,5 A 45 kg bag of charcoal –
which burns approximately as long as a 13 kg bag of sawdust pellets – cost ZMW50.
Please cite this article in press as: Peša I Sawdust pellets, micro gasifying cook stoves and charcoal in urban Zambia: Understanding the value chain
Trang 4and norms of production and exchange and embed them in
prac-tices and technologies’[20: p 1063] Building the social structure
of a market involves ‘the renegotiation and legitimation of values
and beliefs surrounding the economic potential of the commodity
on which the value chain’ depends[20: p 1087] Yet, so far, ICS
attempts have not managed to develop a comprehensive value
chain to compete with charcoal Although both companies
advo-cated a commercial approach, potential users did not recognise
the financial benefits which could be derived from ICS adoption
(Interviews in St Anthony’s and Chamboli, Kitwe, October 2014)
As Bailis et al [7] noted: ‘in Africa there have been dozens of
improved cook stove programs since the 1980s, but few have seen
sustained support over long periods of time and there are few
suc-cess stories to discuss.’ Apart from smaller complaints, consumers
primarily denounced ICS technology as expensive compared to
charcoal Only institutional stove users recognised price
advan-tages from ICS adoption, whereas household users continued to
favour charcoal (Interviews in St Anthony’s and Chamboli, Kitwe,
October 2014) A situated approach is required to understand the
preference for charcoal over ICS technology
The charcoal value chain as a competitor to ICS adoption
Attempts to introduce ICS technology in Zambia have
denounced charcoal as the ‘old’, ‘polluting’ and ‘harmful’ fuel
[12] Nonetheless, charcoal in urban Zambia remains of paramount
importance and its use has even been increasing in recent years
[23] By attempting to displace charcoal, ICS social innovations
aim to overcome socio-economic system failures, stressing that:
‘existing value chains must be redesigned, corporate strategies
rea-ligned and marketing management adapted’[1: p 175] Yet it has
insufficiently been recognised that by building value chains around
sawdust pellets and micro gasifying cook stoves, ICS initiatives
have been competing with the functioning and efficient charcoal
value chain[6] Therefore, the charcoal value chain first has to be
understood before an assessment of the performance of ICS as social innovations can be made (seeFig 3)
Charcoal ‘provides urban households with an affordable, conve-nient and reliable source of energy ( .) at relatively stable prices’
for individuals all along its value chain, from charcoal burners, to transporters, wholesalers, retailers, market women and stove pro-ducers[12; Interview with John Banda, Kitwe, 30 August 2015] Even if charcoal sometimes fulfills a ‘safety net’ role, which does not lift people out of poverty, it can generate much needed income and profits, especially in otherwise economically depressed peri-urban areas and among low-income groups, such as market women
numerous enterprises’, as ‘[s]table urban demand for charcoal, ease
of access to forest resources ( .), and low initial investment costs attract large numbers of people to engage in the commercial pro-duction and sale of charcoal’[28: p 131] By generating employ-ment and income charcoal plays an important role in the national economy, as high demand ensures high profits which are controlled
by a politically influential group of charcoal dealers, transporters and wholesalers[23: p 122] Although much economic activity sur-rounding the charcoal sector remains illicit and untaxed, charcoal benefits the national budget in the form of forestry levies, council taxes and police road blocks[23: p 116] The economic profitability
of charcoal directly influences the (un)willingness of consumers to adopt sawdust pellets and micro gasifying cook stoves.3
ICS marketing initiatives argue from the perspective of individ-ual economic rationality, based on ‘neo-classical economic models which hold that consumers as individuals make a choice of fuels
2007: Idea of using sawdust as cooking fuel
2009-2010:
Emerging Cooking Solutions founded, experimentation with pelletisation and trial with first
40 households
2012: Sales in St
Anthony's, Kitwe, subsidised stoves and intensive marketing campaign
2013: Change from Philips stoves
to Peko Pe, permanent marketing outlets established in Kitwe
2014: Focus shifts income households (payroll deduction) and institutional stoves
2014-2015: Due to electricity shortages ICS have become increasingly popular (especially among middle-income households)
Fig 1 Timeline of Emerging Cooking Solutions activities.
2009: Home Energy Ltd
founded, Zimbabwean and Norwegian partnership
2012-2014:
Experimentation phase, testing stoves, pellets and business models
August 2014:
Marketing container established in Chamboli, Kitwe
February 2015:
Closure of marketing container in Chamboli, Kitwe
2015-2016:
Continued experimentation
to produce low-cost stoves and pellets
Fig 2 Timeline of Home Energy Ltd activities.
3
The social aspect of charcoal consumption is illustrated by the fact that even high-income households buy charcoal on the street corner, rather than in supermarkets Informal charcoal marketing mechanisms cement social relationships, as they allow buyers and sellers to chat and exchange information (Informal correspondence by author with several high-income households).
Please cite this article in press as: Peša I Sawdust pellets, micro gasifying cook stoves and charcoal in urban Zambia: Understanding the value chain
Trang 5based on particular functional requirements, exercising rational
decision-making techniques to maximise their self-interest’[8: p
158] Emerging Cooking Solutions, for example, calculates that by
adopting sawdust pellets a household can save as much as 40% on
fuel expenditure (http://emerging.se/our-impact-2/) Whilst this
might be true,4households do not necessarily adopt the same
calcu-lations When questioning consumers whether sawdust pellets or
charcoal are cheaper, most answered that charcoal is more
cost-efficient (Interviews in St Anthony’s, Kitwe, 24 October 2014) Yet
these claims about the ‘cheapness’ of charcoal usually remain
untested, as very few people can specify exactly how the price of
charcoal relates to the price of sawdust pellets[6] The perceived
cheapness of charcoal, firstly, has to do with patterns of use, as
inex-perienced households use more pellets than required under test
con-ditions or during demonstrations Secondly, the cost of a micro
gasifying cook stove is high compared to a mbaula (which costs
USD2-4)5and sawdust pellets thus have to compensate for the
differ-ence (Interview with Samuel Bell, Lusaka, 28 November 2014)
Thirdly, in the urban Zambian context economic rationality is rarely
perceived from an individual household perspective, but rather social
and market rationality as a whole is considered[10] Charcoal, by
means of its value chain, generates income for numerous individuals,
ranging from rural charcoal burners to bicycle transporters and
mar-ket women Sawdust pellets and micro gasifying cook stoves, on the
other hand, only generate income for a handful of individuals, most
of whom are foreigners.6Even though charcoal might thus be slightly
more expensive than sawdust pellets per unit-of-use, the cost of
char-coal is cheaper in the long run, as it pumps back money into the local
economy through employment generation and profits which accrue
to traders, government officials and stove producers[12] In sum,
‘many users have simply failed to sufficiently value the advantages
of the improved stoves on offer to spend scarce money on these
stoves or to discard traditional cooking methods’[26: p 7544] This
has little to do with consumer ‘irrationality’ and more with the
inabil-ity of ICS social innovations to market their alternative or to convince
users of their value propositions This also underlines that ‘opening
the segment of the poor should not be measured with short-term
fig-ures of market share, revenue, profit or return on investment Instead,
investments need to be gauged in light of long-term objectives, with
special attention to assessing whether the transaction capacity of the
poor was successfully enhanced’[17: p 183]
Social innovation studies underline that organisational
effi-ciency and the social construction of a marketplace are crucial to
the adoption of technologies among low-income users [22]
Through social innovation, which involves innovative
organisa-tional partnerships, business models, financing, marketing and
dis-tribution, ICS initiatives have attempted to build capabilities,
enhance welfare and empower low-income households in urban
Zambia[5: p 824] ICS initiatives have utilised ‘innovations to
rea-lise commercial ( .) opportunities in penetrating deeper into
low-income markets and serving the poor by providing goods and
ser-vices that enhance human development’[21: p 428-9] Moreover,
ICS initiatives have engaged in ‘acquiring and building new
resources and capabilities and forging a multitude of local partner-ships’[25: p 49]as ‘partnerships with governments, large domes-tic corporations, and business groups [can] ( .) help mitigate the risks of entering ( .) markets’[27: p 556] In this sense, the social innovation of ICS did not ‘discover opportunities but rather create [d] them’, by exploiting ideas, incorporating feedback, learning and transforming ‘ideas into opportunities through what can be a lengthy, iterative process’[27: p 574] From an organisational per-spective, ICS social innovations have thus established partnerships and introduced a new technology to urban consumers The ques-tion remains why Zambian households have ‘not made more effort
to diversify their fuel-use strategies [away from charcoal] and experiment with new combinations’ which might save money and provide a healthier alternative[8: p 158] The answer lies in the fact that charcoal has acquired a specific and situated meaning which is deeply embedded in Zambian urban culture and society, even though ‘the meanings and value that commodities acquire are always the product of power struggles and are everywhere open to contestation and change’[8: p 159] Moreover, charcoal
is economically rational due to its highly efficient value chain, which generates livelihoods and ensures a ‘cheap’ source of fuel for urban households Fuel choice and cooking constitute ‘a com-plex social space that is both critical to the material well-being
of the household and imbued with deep cultural meaning’
charcoal value chain, it might even ‘disrupt traditional community self-reliance, while enhancing debt dependence and reliance on retailers’ [5: p 817] The concluding section will view charcoal and sawdust pellets side by side, to assess what ICS initiatives might learn from the charcoal value chain
Conclusion: The value chain dynamics of ICS initiatives and charcoal
ICS initiatives in urban Zambia, by promoting a combination of sawdust pellets and micro gasifying cook stoves, have attempted to provide a more environmentally, socially and economically sus-tainable cooking solution through social innovation In order to
do so, a new value chain surrounding ICS had to be constructed, which had to take the existing charcoal value chain into account Home Energy acknowledged that this is a difficult endeavour:
‘Inherent to such a new innovative concept is the development of new value chains Charcoal’s dominant use is based on this fuel’s attractive price performance characteristic Replacement of char-coal is a long term effort, but will start with new value chains for waste biomass and for manufacturing and distributing clean burning and fuel efficient stoves’ (
thus impedes the introduction of alternatives, such as ICS The NGO SNV has recognised this and attempts to introduce incremental ICS technology via the charcoal value chain SNV’s organisational structure is a social innovation in itself, as mbaula producers are now spurred to produce ICS and market women who sell charcoal are encouraged to offer sustainably produced charcoal briquettes for sale (http://www.snv.org/sector/energy; Interview with Sue Ellis, Lusaka, 28 September 2014).7Working alongside and learning
Tree felling Charcoal burning Packaging
Transport (bicycle, canter, truck )
Regulation (licences, fines, roadblocks)
Trade (wholesale, retail)
Repackaging and consumer sales
Fig 3 The charcoal value chain.
4
Such calculations are likely to be based on experimental test settings in a
controlled environment, rather than on real-life cooking.
5 There is also a life-span difference, though, as a mbaula lasts for only 6 months,
whereas the high-end Philips stoves might last up to 10 years.
6
The perception of sawdust pellets and ICS as being ‘foreign’ is widespread among
consumers Foreign involvement is indeed considerable in all ICS initiatives (Swedish,
Norwegian, Zimbabwean and US entrepreneurs are involved in setting up and
running ICS companies) whereas local employment remains limited.
7
E-mail correspondence with Sue Ellis of SNV Zambia on 13 January 2017 provided the following update: ‘SNV Zambia stopped working in cook stoves ( .) as we had no further funding to invest from donors ( .) Zambia did not have the density of population to get the market to self-sustain.’
Please cite this article in press as: Peša I Sawdust pellets, micro gasifying cook stoves and charcoal in urban Zambia: Understanding the value chain
Trang 6from the charcoal value chain might ultimately prove to be a more
effective strategy for ICS promotion than trying to displace charcoal
altogether
So can ‘Sustainable Energy for All’ be promoted,
organisation-ally, through social innovations such as ICS? This paper has argued
that in urban Zambia ICS initiatives, despite different
organisa-tional structures, have faced numerous struggles Notwithstanding
whether these initiatives were based on partnerships between
NGOs, for-profit businesses, governments or donors, and whether
ICS technology was ‘efficient’, consumers proved hesitant to adopt
ICS It has been suggested that this reluctance is due to the absence
of viable ICS value chains compared to the profitable and efficient
charcoal value chain Economic rationality in urban Zambian
household fuel choices is not calculated for individual households,
but considers the market and society as a whole Charcoal
gener-ates profits all along its value chain on a long-term basis It
there-fore remains the fuel of choice for households, even if individuals
might save a bit of money by adopting sawdust pellets ICS
initia-tives could thus learn from how the charcoal value chain is
organ-ised and how profits are ploughed back into household budgets
and the local economy Yet this is not to suggest that ICS initiatives
cannot find a market in the future, ‘if a few of these ambitious
entrepreneurs are able to break through with scalable, sustainable
and replicable business models to serve’ urban Zambian
house-holds (Shrimali et al., 2011: 7555) What this case study has
sug-gested is that technology adoption does not depend solely on the
efficiency of a technology, but rather on the social construction
of a marketplace and on value creation, on social innovations to
generate lasting market demand Value creation is, however,
con-text specific and subject to change Different markets might
require different approaches, as one size does not fit all
The Zambian example suggests that ICS initiatives require a
contextualised and situated approach What works in urban areas
might not work in rural areas and what works for middle-income
households might not appeal to low-income households [7] ICS
technology is imbued with meaning and values Technology
there-fore has to economically embed itself and socially construct the
marketplace it wishes to penetrate Without efficient value chains,
which can take a long time to build, technologies will not be
adopted, no matter how environmentally friendly or cost efficient
they are It has been argued that, paradoxically enough, social
innovations to introduce a new fuel can learn a lot from the ‘old’
and ‘polluting’ fuel, charcoal Future research could focus on
fol-lowing ICS initiatives over time, to see whether progress has been
made in market penetration More user-centred research would
also be welcome, to better understand the reasons for (non-)
adoption of ICS technology and to see whether ICS appeal
differ-ently to various market segments ICS technology should not be
viewed in a social or cultural vacuum, or through a lens of Western
‘rationality’[1], but should be understood as socially and
econom-ically situated within local fuel economies, because only then can
household fuel choices be adequately understood
Interviews
All interviews have been conducted by the author between
September–November 2014 and between July–September 2015
Interview recordings and transcriptions can be requested from
the author (iva.pesa@history.ox.ac.uk)
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by a post-doctoral fellowship from
the Centre for Frugal Innovations in Africa, a collaboration between
Leiden, Delft and Erasmus Universities I would like to sincerely
thank Maria Kankondo and Lyness Mumba Lubemba for their excellent research assistance I would also like to thank the partic-ipants of the workshop of the Centre for Frugal Innovation (2015) and of the Tech4Dev conference (2016) for their useful feedback on
an earlier version of this paper Lena Kruckenberg and the two anonymous reviewers provided most constructive comments on earlier drafts
References
techno-saviorism In: Hostettler S, Gadgil A, Hazboun E, editors Sustainable access to energy in the global south: Essential technologies and implementation
[2] Akrich M, Callon M, Latour B The key to success in innovation part I: the art of
[3] Akrich M, Callon M, Latour B The key to success in innovation part II: the art of
social capital in capability development and community empowerment J
[6] Atteridge A, Heneen M, Senyagwa J Transforming household energy practices among charcoal users in Lusaka, Zambia: A user-centred approach Stockholm Environment Institute working paper 2013–14; 2013.
and pitfalls of commercializing improved cookstoves World Dev 2009;37
[8] Bank L The social life of paraffin Afr Stud 1997;56(2):157–79
Insights about dynamics and change from sociology and institutional theory.
[12] Gumbo, DJ et al., 2013 Dynamics of the charcoal and indigenous timber trade
in Zambia: A scoping study in Eastern, Northern and Northwestern Provinces CIFOR occasional paper.
recipe for inclusive growth or social exclusion? J Manage Stud 2012;49 (4):785–812
[15] Kaplinsky R, Spreading the gains from globalisation: What can be learned from value chain analysis? IDS Working paper 110; 2000.
[16] Kersten, W, et al., Context variation by design: How design principles by their nature can accommodate the application of complexity theory to improve contemporary innovation practices Delft University of Technology working paper; 2015.
construction of the automobile in the rural United States Technol Culture
[19] Kruckenberg LJ, Loubere N, Social innovations for energy access: Organizing
‘‘Sustainable Energy for All” Call for papers, Tech4Dev Conference, Lausanne Switzerland 2-4 May 2016: http://cooperation.epfl.ch/files/content/ sites/cooperation/files/Tech4Dev%202016/SE11-ENE_SESSION_
[22] Phills Jr JA, Deiglmeier K, Miller DT Rediscovering social innovation Stanford
The case of multinational enterprise/nongovernment organization alliances.
Please cite this article in press as: Peša I Sawdust pellets, micro gasifying cook stoves and charcoal in urban Zambia: Understanding the value chain