Tea is an energy-intensive business and Kenya’s biggest export crop. It requires more energy to produce a kilo of tea than a kilo of steel, in Kenya most of this energy comes in the form of firewood. According to a 2014 report from Gatsby Foundation, Kenya faces 12m m3 shortfall of fuelwood p/a. The Kenyan Tea Development Agency (KTDA) operates 67 factories through a cooperative model that involves 600,000 smallholders.

KTDA factories consume around 500,000 tonnes of firewood every year, or approximately 2.5million trees. In the wider landscape, most people continue to cook with firewood or charcoal, despite the modest uptake of fuel efficient stoves, it is estimated that the tea-growing community in a catchment typically consumes 3 times the amount used by the factory.

This project, delivered in partnership with Rainforest Alliance and EnSo Impact, uses KTDA as an ‘anchor-client’ to support transition to a sustainable biomass energy market. Commercial biomass briquette production located in Central Kenya will act as the catalyst for changing energy consumption patterns at a landscape level.