Himalayan Stove Project Offers Carbon Credits to Assist Environment and Nepal Cookstoves Effort

TAOS, N.M. (Dec. 20, 2016) – The Himalayan Stove Project (HSP), the Taos-based non-profit that has shipped almost 4,000 fuel-efficient cookstoves to the mountainous communities of Nepal, announces its new CarbonKarma™ program that allows donors to purchase carbon credits to benefit both the environment and future stove recipients.

A new website, www.CarbonKarma.guru, is selling Carbon Offset Credits for $20 each, with a majority of that earmarked for the HSP. There is no limit to the amount of credits that can be purchased to help offset an individual or corporation’s carbon footprint. Donors receive a certificate verifying the amount of carbon offsets purchased.

While the Envirofit cookstoves are 90 percent more efficient than open cook fires, and use 75 percent less biomass fuel, they still have a small carbon footprint of two metric tonnes per year, according to George Basch, the HSP founder who has studied the sale of carbon credits to raise funds to purchase additional cookstoves.

The Gold Standard Carbon Credits will be supplied by stove manufacturer Envirofit, based in Ft. Collins, Colo., which has delivered almost 1.5 million clean-burning, fuel-efficient cookstoves worldwide since it was founded in 2003.

The Gold Standard organization is endorsed by 80-plus NGOs and reviews more than 1,100 projects in 70 countries seeking certification. It works to ensure every dollar of climate and development funding goes as far as it can, explains Basch.
“All of us have a negative impact on the world we share together, but through this carbon credit program we can help take some of the pressure off the planet while profoundly changing the lives of entire families in Nepal.

“Envirofit is making these carbon credits available to our Himalayan Stove Project family to help us transport another 577-stove shipping container to Nepal by mid-2017,” Basch adds.

Learn more about the Gold Standard by viewing: http://www.goldstandard.org/

To calculate household carbon footprint, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggests logging onto: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/household-carbon-footprint-calculator

Donations for cookstoves are accepted at http://www.himalayanstoveproject.org/donate-now/

In December, the HSP was profiled in a story in Costco Connection magazine which has a circulation of 12 million. It can be viewed at www.costcoconnection.com (page 112) or http://tinyurl.com/georgebasch

Carbon credits can be purchased at www.CarbonKarma.guru

The HSP donates and distributes free, clean-burning, fuel-efficient Envirofit cook stoves, transforming the lives of individuals and families who now cook with traditional, rudimentary stoves or over open fire pits inside their homes, consuming excessive amounts of precious fuel and polluting the indoor air to dangerously unhealthy levels.

The Himalayan Stove Project is based at 1335 Paseo del Pueblo Sur #305, Taos NM 87571, 505 363 8863, www.himalayanstoveproject.org/, guru@CarbonKarma.Guru

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Media contact:

Jeff Blumenfeld
Blumenfeld and Assoc. PR
203 326 1200, jeff@blumenfeldpr.com 12-20-2016