Eni reaffirms its commitment to promoting improved cooking systems at the IEA Clean Cooking Summit for Africa

The company pledges to distribute improved cookstoves to 10 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2027, reaching 20 million people with advanced cooking solutions by 2030.

Paris (France), 14 May 2024 – Eni reaffirms its commitment to promoting improved cooking systems on the occasion of the "Summit on Clean Cooking in Africa" organized by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Eni has also endorsed the “Clean Cooking Declaration: Making 2024 the pivotal year for Clean Cooking” to accelerate universal access to more modern cooking systems, essential to ensure access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy for all, as established by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7. The declaration was signed by governments, the private sector, international organizations and civil society who attended the Summit, taking place in Paris.

According to the International Energy Agency, around 1 billion people in Africa still cook their meals through rudimentary cooking systems, breathing in the noxious smoke released by combustion. The lack of access to Clean Cooking systems has significant health, social, economic and environmental impacts, and contributes to 3.7 million premature deaths every year, especially to the detriment of women and children.

Through this endorsement, Eni reiterates its commitment to continue promoting access to more modern cooking systems in Africa, bringing benefits in terms of health, productivity, gender equality, forest conservation, biodiversity and emissions reduction.

In 2018 Eni has launched a broad Clean Cooking program that involved to date around 500,000 people in Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Mozambique, Rwanda and Angola, and has set itself the objective, made public on the occasion of the Summit, of reaching 10 million people across sub-Saharan Africa by 2027. Furthermore, Eni intends to encourage the transition from improved solutions, which guarantee a reduction of over 60% in woody biomass, to advanced solutions, which are characterized by the total reduction of use of unsustainable woody biomass. Following this evolution, the goal is to reach 20 million people by 2030, with an associate spending of 300 M$.

Eni’s model is the result of company’s long experience in the continent and aims to contribute to reducing the impact of cooking activities on deforestation and the negative effects on people’s health. A distinctive of Eni’s model is that the cookstoves are distributed free of charge, overcoming any financial barrier. Furthermore, to promote the development of entrepreneurship and the economy of communities, Eni supports the local production of cooking systems, by evaluating the potential of producers and contributing to strengthening their technical and entrepreneurial skills, facilitating access to technology, capital and the market. Finally, the distribution of the stoves takes place through local and international organizations already present in the areas, which guarantee correct interaction with families and raise their awareness of the benefits of clean cooking systems.

The distribution of improved cookstoves - whose efficiency is certified according to the standards of the Clean Cooking Alliance - allows Eni to generate carbon credits used in line with the company's Net-Zero strategy, which envisages the achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050 through the reduction of emissions (scope 1, 2 and 3) and the compensation of residual emissions through high-quality carbon offset initiatives.