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Mail and logistics group Deutsche Post DHL has gained UN approval for a climate project in Lesotho.
The company has provided thousands of efficient wood-burning cooking stoves that reduce fuel use and emit up to 80% less carbon dioxide than more traditional methods.
Other advantages are that the lower wood consumption reduces deforestation and, as a result, creates less soil erosion, and that less smoke from cooking minimises certain health risks.
This project satisfies the Gold Standard, a quality qualification from environmental organisations, companies and governments.
Deutsche Post DHL is doing the work with atmosfair, a carbon dioxide offsetting agency that registered the first ever stove project with the UN in 2009.
Xaver Kitzinger, atmosfair’s project manager, said: “According to current figures, 5,200 stoves are now being used in Lesotho every day and distribution is growing all the while. Approximately 5,000 more households are set to receive their own stove this year.
“The first monitoring surveys are also under way. These spot checks establish how the stoves are used in households and serve as a basis for the official certification of carbon dioxide savings. The aim is to have 10,000 stoves in working use in Lesotho by the end of the year.”
Christof Ehrhart, Deutsche Post DHL’s corporate communications and corporate responsibility director, said: “Our first independent climate protection project in Lesotho is designed for the long term.
“It not only relieves the burden on the environment but also helps to make day-to-day life easier for the community.”
By next year Deutsche Post DHL expects the annual carbon dioxide saving from the project will exceed 20,000 tons. The reduction since the first stoves were delivered in June 2011 is already put at 9,000 tons.
Under its GoGreen service the company also aims, by the middle of this year, to use the first certified reductions to offset the carbon dioxide emissions that it currently generates by transporting customers’ goods.
