SUPER LOCAL received a place
in ‘The Challenge’ because of its
sustainable approach to social and
cultural issues. The collective’s
Pim van Baarsen is pictured.DESIGN FOR A CLEAN PLANET
Nº 5Fuelling a Nation
SUPER LOCAL’s high-efficiency stove service for Malawi could be a life-saver.
worldwide cook on open fires indoors,
a practice responsible for the deaths of
4 million people a year.Such stoves already exist, though. How
does your concept elevate them to some-
thing special? Ours are part of a bigger
service aimed at the majority of Malawians,
who live on a few dollars a day. They can’t
afford efficient stoves, but they really need
them. I propose establishing a system that
will allow them to rent cookers for a small
weekly fee. Everything in the supply chain of
this service – from the production of ovens
and trees to the use of the ovens – would
help to boost Malawi, Malawians and the
environment.
The stoves would be made locally,
in collaboration with a social business. The
result would be new job opportunities and
support for the local economy. What I have
in mind is an organization such as Sakara-menta, a small production company we
worked with in Malawi that manufactures
metal products. It’s an outfit that offers good
working conditions and a fair hourly wage.How would the stove combat deforesta-
tion? On its own, one stove could save 30
to 40 trees and 12 to 15 tonnes of carbon
dioxide in its lifetime. That’s good, but
the figures could be improved by planting
natural and production forests.What’s the difference between a natural
forest and a production forest? Produc-
tion forests provide people connected to
the service with quality firewood, so they
don’t need to cut down the trees and bushes
around them. These forests would contain
fast-growing hardwood trees that produce
a lot of heat when burning. A species such as
blue gum, a eucalyptus tree with blue-green
aromatic leaves and smooth bark, grows
perfectly in that climate. For every tree used
in the production forest, we would plant one
in a natural forest to make Malawi green
again. Both kinds of forests would yield job
opportunities, prevent erosion, transpire
water, hold rainfall longer in the upper part
of the soil, and create a natural habitat for
plants and animals. – WG
super-local.comTell us how your concept relates to your
work as design duo Super Local. PIM VAN
BAARSEN: Super Local works on social
and cultural issues, mostly in developing
countries. We think on a global scale, but
we believe that solutions should be found
within the country in question. That’s why
we do extensive research and start at the
local level whenever possible.
Is that why your proposal focuses on
Malawi? Yes. We carried out three projects
there between 2012 and 2017. After seeing
quite a bit of the country, we discovered that
Malawi no longer has large forests. Every
twig is used for cooking, and no tree or bush
in public space is safe. Charcoal is another
cause of deforestation. Making and trans-
porting the material may be illegal, but both
activities still occur on a huge scale, simply
because there’s no affordable alternative.
Which leads us to your concept... It’s
a high-efficiency stove. In Malawi, most
people prepare food using a cheap cooker
bought at the local market. The appliance
requires a lot of fuel and breaks down easily.
A more efficient stove would cut energy
costs and reduce the production of toxic
emissions from kitchens. Reduction of emis-
sions is vital, since nearly 3 billion people
FOREST DEFORESTTTAAATION FIREWOOD PRODUCTION
OF CHARCOALCHARCOAL COOKING
ON CHARCOAL44 THE CHALLENGE