Background

In rural western Kenya, residents use water for drinking and basic sanitation services from sources containing microbiological contamination. This leads to diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases and is the third largest cause of death in Kenya among children and adults according to the World Health Organisation.

The prevailing practice in rural Kenya is to boil water for drinking and bathing using wood fuel. However, this is not widespread because many families lack the resources to afford the wood, which is scarce and expensive if purchased.

The project This is the worlds first clean water project to be supported by carbon finance and accredited to the Gold Standard.  The project involves distribution of nearly a million LifeStraw Family Units, serving over four million people in rural Kenya. These filters treat contaminated water and reduce the need to boil water with non-renewable biomass. With the assistance of carbon finance, this project can be economically sustainable and provides a significant improvement in public health.  The water filters are to be distributed as part of an Integrated Prevention Campaign which distributes CarePacks to families. The CarePack contains mosquito nets, HIV advice, family planning advice and the LifeStraw.

One LifeStraw Family Filter purifies 18,000 litres of water over three years (calculated as providing 4.1 litres of water to four people every day for the period). During the monitoring periods, surveys will assess how much the LifeStraws are actually being used, which will determine the actual emissions savings, and when the LifeStraw must be replaced.

Replacement of the LifeStraws is factored into the project design every three years. The replacement will be funded by the sale of carbon credits. In this way, there is an economic incentive to ensure the successful implementation of the campaign over the long term - rather than it being another public health campaign funded by donor monies in which outcomes are not rigorously monitored.

Benefits beyond emissions

Social: The project lowers the incidence of water borne disease in Western Kenya - the third largest killer in the country. There are associated improvements in Public Health outreach and the programme reduces indoor air pollution, through reducing the need to burn woodfuel for boiling water practices.

Economic: By reducing the amount of time spent gathering wood or money spent buying it, the project enables stakeholders to allocate resources more efficiently. Employment is also created during the distribution and monitoring phases. 

Environmental: Less wood is used for water boiling and there is lower demand for locally available, unsustainable wood resources