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PDF, Dynamics of Sustained Use and Abandonment of Clean Cooking LETTER • OPEN ACCESS Recent citations Dynamics of sustained use and abandonment of - Association of personal network attributes with clean cooking adoption in rural South clean cooking systems: lessons from rural India India Praveen Kumar et al To cite this article: Nishesh Chalise et al 2018 Environ. Res. Lett. 13 035010 - The refill gap: clean cooking fuel adoption in rural India Bodie Cabiyo et al View the article online for updates and enhancements. This content was downloaded from IP address 170.106.35.93 on 28/09/2021 at 08:48 Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 035010 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aab0af LETTER Dynamics of sustained use and abandonment of clean OPEN ACCESS cooking systems: lessons from rural India RECEIVED 3 October 2017 Nishesh Chalise1, Praveen Kumar2, Pratiti Priyadarshini3 and Gautam N Yadama2,4 REVISED 1 Department of Social Work, Augsburg University, Minneapolis, United States of America 8 February 2018 2 Boston College School of Social Work, Boston College, United States of America ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION 3 Udaipur Regional Office, Foundation for Ecological Security, Udaipur, India 20 February 2018 4 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. PUBLISHED 14 March 2018 E-mail: [email protected] Keywords: clean cooking, community based system dynamics, adoption, household air pollution, biogas, sustained use Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Abstract Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Clean cooking technologies—ranging from efficient cookstoves to clean fuels—are widely deployed Any further distribution to reduce household air pollution and alleviate adverse health and climate consequences. Although of this work must maintain attribution to much progress has been made on the technical aspects, sustained and proper use of clean cooking the author(s) and the title of the work, journal technologies by populations with the most need has been problematic. Only by understanding how citation and DOI. clean cooking as an intervention is embedded within complex community processes can we ensure its sustained implementation. Using a community-based system dynamics approach, we engaged two rural communities in co-creating a dynamic model to explain the processes influencing the uptake and transition to sustained use of biogas (an anaerobic methane digester), a clean fuel and cooking technology. The two communities provided contrasting cases: one abandoned biogas while the other continues to use it. We present a system dynamics simulation model, associated analyses, and experiments to understand what factors drive transition and sustained use. A central insight of the model is community processes influencing the capacity to solve technical issues. Model analysis shows that families begin to abandon the technology when it takes longer to solve problems. The momentum in the community then shifts from a determination to address issues with the cooking technology toward caution in further adhering to it. We also conducted experiments using the simulation model to understand the impact of interventions aimed at renewing the use of biogas. A combination of theoretical interventions, including repair of non-functioning biogas units and provision of embedded technical support in communities, resulted in a scenario where the community can continue using the technology even after support is retracted. Our study also demonstrates the utility of a systems approach for engaging local stakeholders in delineating complex community processes to derive significant insights into the dynamic feedback mechanisms involved in the sustained use of biogas by the poor. Introduction technology side there is a vigorous effort to develop cleaner and efficient cooking technologies, and renew- Substantial empirical evidence points to the harm- able energy technologies to reduce exposure to harmful ful environment and health impacts of ambient and emissions from both HAP and ambient air pollution; household air pollution (HAP) [1–9]. Reducing HAP, (2) social, behavioral and public health researchers which impacts almost 41% of the global (mostly poor) have focused their efforts on understanding a range population [10], improves both health and environ- of determinants including technical aspects, which mental outcomes. The UN has therefore committed could drive the adoption and sustained use of these to providing affordable, reliable and sustainable mod- technologies in energy-poor communities. Technolog- ern energy for all as one of its sustainable development ical efforts to develop better cooking alternatives and goals (SDG Goal 7) [11]. Two parallel efforts are under- clean energy systems have received considerable atten- way to address this challenge of HAP: (1) on the tion and support [5, 12]. Commensurate emphasis © 2018 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd Environ. Res. Lett. 13 (2018) 035010 has not been given to understanding social, ecological use [17–19]. The issue of adoption and sustained use and behavioral factors driving the adoption and sus- of biogas is complex. This complexity arises not only tained use of clean cooking practices in energy-poor from a high number of factors [32] but how they inter- communities [5, 13, 14]. act with each other. Social, economic, environmental Improved cookstoves (ICSs) have received con- and technological factors interact in nonlinear relation- siderable focus as technologies to address HAP in ships to form feedback processes with time delays. The energy-poor communities [15–18]. Most of these ICSs cause of the problem behavior, in this case a persistent are low cost and targeted to poor communities [5, 12]. trend of low uptake or high rate of abandonment of However, adoption and use of ICSs are saddled with clean cooking technologies such as biogas over time, their own set of challenges. HAP exposure-response cannot be attributed to a few independent factors but curves are non-linear in nature [1, 2, 19]. Health rather to how the processes are structured in a set benefits can be derived only at very low levels of of interacting feedback mechanisms. Methods with a exposure [2, 4]. For substantial health benefits from unidirectional approach and inability to incorporate clean cooking, the World Health Organization (WHO) contextual processes are less suitable for developing recommends reduction in PM2.5 exposure levels to insights into problems embedded in complex commu- 35 gm−3 [20, 21]. Most ICSs exhibit poor perfor- nity systems [33, 34]. A systems perspective is necessary mance against the WHO’s recommended indoor air to understand the dynamic interplay of social, ecologi- quality guidelines (IAQGs) in the actual household cal and technological factors driving the adoption and scenario. Emissions performance of multiple mod- sustained use of clean cooking systems such as biogas. els of ICSs against the ISO’s International Workshop There is a paucity of literature deploying systems Agreement’s (IWA) tiers have shown that none of thinking in exploring the determinants of adoption these stoves could be placed in tier 4 in terms of and sustained use of clean cooking technologies in emissions performance [22]; they are mostly placed energy-poor communities [14, 20, 35]. More specif- in tier 1 and tier 2 [22]. Health-related benefits are ically, these determinants in the context of biogas for thus compromised despite switching to ICSs. Further, these communities have been barely studied, and merit this shift does not insulate communities from relying closer inquiry [20]. Using biogas as a representative on biomass as a fuel. Anthropogenic degradation of clean cooking technology in rural poor communities forests and the drudgery of collecting biomass con- of India, the current study and its results bridge this tinues [23]. Adoption of ICSs also does not ensure a gap in our understanding of the drivers of the uptake complete abandonment of traditional biomass stoves. and sustained use of clean fuels for cooking. With- Use of multiple stoves (also known as stacking) com- out a robust assessment of the determinants impacting bining traditional cooking stoves and ICSs is routine the adoption and sustained use of biogas, the chal- in such poor communities [15, 24–26]. There has lenge for energy-poor communities will persist despite been a recent emphasis to develop strategies to push biogas being a viable technological solution for HAP. IWA’s tier 4 cooking systems in energy-poor com- The study also provides key behavioral insights, which munities. Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), induction could be tailored and adapted to promote adoption and stoves and biogas digesters are tier 4 clean cooking tech- sustained use of other clean cooking systems in many nologies with emissions below the WHO’srequired energy-poor communities. IAQGs [22]. LPG and induction stoves are mired with multiple issues of affordability and accessibility, especially in poor communities of rural India [27]. Bio- Methods gas digesters (biogas) could provide a viable solution for low-income rural communities, where affordabil- To understand the complex community processes ity and accessibility to LPG or induction stoves is still shaping the sustained use of biogas, our study uses the a challenge [20]. However, adoption and sustainment community based system dynamics (CBSD) modeling (with no stacking) of biogas in these rural communities approach [36, 37]. System dynamics is a computational remain significant impediments [28–30]. modeling approach which focuses on understanding
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