Santiago Atitlán,
Guatemala
TRL’s Improved Cookstove (ICS) Project enables community access to sustainable energy technology by providing, installing, and maintaining energy efficient cookstoves at a subsidized rate. This social service directly addresses energy poverty in addition to several other socio-economic challenges facing the indigenous communities in the Sololá Department as a consequence of years of systemic discrimination and neglect. Through the distribution of ONIL stoves, this grouped project reduces demand for wood fuel, slowing local deforestation and empowering the Tz’utujil Maya people of Lake Atitlán, a community disadvantaged daily by extreme economic, environmental, and public health struggles. By replacing open cooking fires with ICS technology and performing energy efficiency improvements in existing biomass fired cookstoves, the project reduces energy demand in the form of wood fuel, thus generating net GHG reductions.