- Staff writer
CARBON OFFSET SOLUTION FROM WONDERBAG
Wonderbag, founded by Sarah Collins, is a South African company responsible for a non-electric, heat-retention cooker. It allows food that has been brought to the boil using conventional methods to continue to cook for up to eight hours without using additional energy sources.
Wonderbag has announced a commercial partnership with Bastion Advisory, which advises organisations looking to optimise their financial risk management.
Together, the two organisations are offering companies a new avenue to enter voluntary carbon offset markets. The use of a Wonderbag saves an average of one ton of carbon emissions per year, making the company’s voluntary carbon credits under the Voluntary Carbon Standard (“VCS”) an ideal vehicle for businesses looking to purchase carbon offsets. The partnership enables Bastion to package and sell the VCS generated by Wonderbag to communities in Africa, helping the organisation to reach its goal of creating five million tons of carbon offset per annum, while enabling customer businesses to meet their emission targets.
Paul Polman of Unilever was instrumental in identifying Wonderbag’s potential, stating that it was the very innovation he had been looking for to halve Unilever ’s carbon footprint.
Cooking with a Wonderbag has significant money, water and energy savings, as well as environmental benefits. In a Wonderbag carbon project, the company measures the difference between baseline cooking fuel usage, which is the cooking fuel that would be used without a Wonderbag, and the cooking fuel usage when a Wonderbag is used. This "difference" enables them to calculate the carbon offset, or the carbon credit, produced by a Wonderbag. Just one Wonderbag used over a year reduces up to 1,5 tons of carbon emissions, saves 1300 hours of cooking time, reduces exposure to indoor air-pollution by up to 60%, saves five trees from being cut down which slows deforestation, reduces fuel costs for cooking by up to 80%, and saves over 1000 litres of water per annum.
