ENGIE invests in Green Bio Energy to develop improved cooking implements in Uganda

ENGIE has taken an 18.5% minority stake in Green Bio Energy, a company active in Uganda where it produces improved cookstoves and charcoal briquettes reconstituted from waste materials.

Disadvantaged communities manufacture the briquettes as part of a green circular economy model, utilizing wood charcoal dust and burnt banana peels. By making use of recovered waste, Green Bio Energy replaces traditional fuels such as wood, thereby effectively countering deforestation while providing customers an alternative that is custom-tailored to local cooking practices.

The company also produces locally improved cookstoves, thereby maximizing its effectiveness with users. The stoves are numbered and may be traced, thus enabling their distributors to take advantage of carbon credits.

Isabelle Kocher, CEO of ENGIE, declared: 

“The ENGIE Group is very happy to be diversifying the activity of ‘ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies’ by supporting this key challenge of improved cookstoves, of major significance for those most in need, and thus promote Green Bio Energy’s development in this sector. This investment expands upon the fund’s traditional involvement in promoting access to sustainable energy for everyone.”  

Vincent Kienzler, Managing Director of Green Bio Energy, added: 

“The support and confidence of ‘ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Énergies’ will enable us to accelerate our development in Uganda and in the region and extend our work with these populations. Green Bio Energy’s goal is to improve the quality of life of nearly 300,000 people by reducing emissions of fine particulate matter in homes and over 268,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions by the year 2020.”

Green Bio Energy is the 17th investment of “ENGIE Rassembleurs d’Energies” and its 6th in Africa. After investments in Fenix International, BBOXX and PEG Ghana in individual solar systems, Simgas in biogas, and Ausar Energy in micro grids, the fund thus diversifies its portfolio and is now active in the area of improved cookstoves and waste energy recovery.