Quantifying the Benefits: The Challenge of Assessing Impact

It’s also hard to quantify. A wide range of parameters including fuel use, stove efficiency, cooking time, seasonal, spatial, technique and demographic variations all factor into the amount of emission reductions a project achieves.

One of these parameters is the fraction of Non-Renewable Biomass (fNRB). It is meant to represent the proportion of biomass (such as wood used as fuel) that is harvested unsustainably in a given area. Simply put, if biomass is harvested faster than it regrows, the practice is unsustainable. Sustainably harvested biomass leaves carbon stocks unchanged because it is replaced at the same rate it is harvested.

An fNRB number of 0.3, for example, suggests that 30% of the biomass is harvested faster than it regrows, while 70% is harvested sustainably. This is one of the factors used to determine the baseline for the emission reductions in clean cooking projects, and the carbon credits they can generate. The fNRB is specific to each area and takes into account multiple variables.

fNRB is complex to model, and based upon the context, data, and methods available at the time. We are now seeing new modelling-based approaches with updated assumptions and input data.

But these updated values are still based on modelling (in other words, estimates) as there is no way to directly measure fNRB. These new values are also subject to limitations and uncertainties and by no means discredit the validity of historical fNRB values. In fact, those currently proposed may well underestimate actual emission reductions, which is positive for conservativeness but may not be closer to reality in all instances.

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