Opening the black pot: a service design-driven approach to understanding the use of cleaner cookstoves in peri-urban Kenya

This policy brief describes a small-scale study in peri-urban areas outside Nairobi, Kenya, examining the use of advanced biomass pellet cookstoves. It advocates for a service design-driven approach combining behavioral insights and social-ecological systems thinking to better align stove development with user needs and archetypes.

• The adoption of cleaner, more efficient stoves in peri-urban Kenya is slow, despite the health risks of household pollutants from inefficient biomass stoves and their links to climate change and deforestation. The study suggests that stove producers and implementers can improve success rates by using service design methods, behavioral insights, and social-ecological systems thinking to better understand user needs.
• Resource allocation for cookstove programs should be tailored to user archetypes: users motivated by saving money require more after-sales support, while those motivated by convenience are more self-sufficient in overcoming challenges but require better fuel purchase and supply chain facilitation.
• Scaling up advanced gasifier cookstoves in Kenya requires a stabilized biomass pellet fuel supply infrastructure. This could be supported through subsidies for fuels provided either to consumers or upstream to aid research and development in the fuel supply sector.
• Transitioning to new cooking systems requires coordinated local support, including technical repairs and assistance throughout the user journey, potentially utilizing the cookstove users themselves to provide this support.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2020). Opening the black pot: a service design-driven approach to understanding the use of cleaner cookstoves in peri-urban Kenya. https://www.sei.org/publications/opening-the-black-pot-a-service-design-driven-approach-to-understanding-the-use-of-cleaner-cookstoves-in-peri-urban-kenya/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Opening the black pot: a service design-driven approach to understanding the use of cleaner cookstoves in peri-urban Kenya. 2020. https://www.sei.org/publications/opening-the-black-pot-a-service-design-driven-approach-to-understanding-the-use-of-cleaner-cookstoves-in-peri-urban-kenya/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Opening the black pot: a service design-driven approach to understanding the use of cleaner cookstoves in peri-urban Kenya |date=6 July 2020 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/opening-the-black-pot-a-service-design-driven-approach-to-understanding-the-use-of-cleaner-cookstoves-in-peri-urban-kenya/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2020opening, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Opening the black pot: a service design-driven approach to understanding the use of cleaner cookstoves in peri-urban Kenya}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2020}, month = jul, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/opening-the-black-pot-a-service-design-driven-approach-to-understanding-the-use-of-cleaner-cookstoves-in-peri-urban-kenya/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }