KOKO Networks is a climate-technology company that supplied clean cooking fuel to low-income households. Founded in 2014; launched commercially in 2019, the company operated in regional and up-country areas including, Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Nakuru in Kenya. The company ceased operations in January 2026 when employees and customers received text messages of the company’s decision to shutdown.
Household air pollution from traditional cooking (wood, charcoal) and kerosene cause approximately 600,000 deaths yearly, mostly women and children according to African Development Bank. In addition to premature deaths, deforestation is necessary to harvest firewood- open fire cooking also contributes about 2% to global greenhouse gas emissions. KOKO Networks offered an alternative to open fire cooking; a cookstove- an affordable way of cooking that also doesn’t negatively impact health outcomes. They partnered with Vivo energy to provide bioethanol based fuel and SAARUS, a manufacturer in India for the cookstoves and canisters. Each customer gets a pair of cookstove and a canister that can be refilled at any of the 3000 KOKO fuel ATM corner shops at a highly subsidized price point. Cookstoves retailed at KSh 1500, and refills as little as KSh 30. 1.5 million households and 700 staff; engineers, logistics, customer service workers and agents across Kenya benefitted from this venture.
A 300 million enterprise, KOKO’s investors included Microsoft climate innovation fund, Mirova and Rand Merchant Bank. The subsidized price was possible because of the business model- carbon financing. The company sells carbon credits to high polluting institutions, approximately 2,450,000 tons of credits were issued as of December 2023 based on the amount of cookstoves sold and supposed emissions reduced. Almost 15 million credits were issued before the company closed. Revenue generated from the sale of credits subsidized their products.
The company hoped to take advantage of the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) agreement that requires airlines to purchase carbon credits starting from late 2027. KOKO needed a Letter of Authorization from the Kenyan government which was not granted. The company needed the letter to sell carbon credits on the international compliance market under Article 6 of the Paris climate agreement- credits are worth more on the international compliance market than on voluntary carbon markets. Compliance markets are regulated and require binding agreement with the government of as state- in KOKO’s case the Kenyan government who signed an investment agreement with the company in January 2024.
https://www.aecweek-registration.com/2026/
The cabinet secretary for trade and industry Lee Kinyanjui, said the “government refused the LoA because KOKO would have taken up the entire share of credits Kenya could sell internationally”. This refusal means that the company could no longer subsidize their products to customers. Former customers will be left stranded and have to find an alternative. Tom prices, an analyst and a believer in cookstove projects concluded in his article that “KOKO’s credits were largely hot air”, yet is convinced that the collapse is not a “failure of regulation- it’s a sign that the system is finally working”.
One of the co-authors of the paper “pervasive over-crediting from cookstove offset methodologies” in Nature Sustainability told channel 4 news that cookstove projects are “claiming over six times the amount of climate benefits than they’re really achieving”. This is unsurprising- there have been persistent reporting about dodgy offset methodologies. Over-crediting especially in cookstove projects is rife in the industry and intensely undermining real solutions to combating climate change. Carbon offsetting is not a remedy for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.
The company has since filed for administration.
