Deforestation is a big problem around the world. More than half of the planet cooks on open flame fires fueled by wood and other organic matter, but this cooking technique results in close to 2 million premature deaths every year, which is two times more people than those who die from malaria. Two green entrepreneur ventures are working to overcome this environmental and social challenge with innovative cooking techniques that are set to change the world.

Green Enterprise Makes BioLite CampStove Prevents Deforestation, Powers Devices

The BioLite CampStove, which is now being manufactured in time for your next camping trip, is a small, durable little camp stove about the size of a conventional water bottle and super lightweight. By concentrating the heat created by burning organic matter, it reduces air emissions by more than 90% while providing an affordable source of energy for small electronic and electric devices.

The CampStove, which is an adaptation of the larger BioLite stove used in many developing countries, has a usb plug that allows you to charge devices like your iPhone and other portable electronics. This provides an on-demand source for electricity that you can also use to power things like lights, and makes it a great solution for people living in developing countries who are otherwise not connected to the grid or cannot afford electricity.

Check out the video to hear some of the stories of these green entrepreneurs as they worked from prototype to commercially-available product over the period of two years of field testing and user feedback on over four continents.

The team hopes to launch large-scale promotion of their stoves in India, Uganda, Ghana, and Kenya. Your purchase of a BioLite CampStove helps to support this social enterprise working to solve some pretty important environmental problems.

Green Enterpreneurs Create Wonderbag for Less Stove-Time Cooking

With another ingenious take on saving cooking energy, the Wonderbag helps home chefs everywhere cut down on stovetop time to reduce their carbon footprints. What is essentially an insulated bag, the Wonderbag works by allowing you to heat a pot of food on the stove to get the cooking started. You then transfer the hot pot to the Wonderbag which insulates the pot to continue the cooking for hours longer.

This cooking alternative can reduce your fuel consumption by 30%, while diminishing your production of greenhouse gases and toxic fumes associated with cooking fuels. It’s also a lot safer for children because it reduces the time you need to use an open flame or hot stove for cooking.

When applied in a developing world context, the Wonderbag also has the benefit of reducing wood burned for cooking, which is another way to prevent deforestation. Additionally, because food spends very little time on the stove, there’s less chance of it burning, which means it reduces food waste. That’s good for North America where we throw out tons of food waste every day, but also good for cash-strapped mothers in places like Africa.

Wonderbag hopes their green business will help save 8 million tonnes of carbon in 5 years, which is like preventing 1.5 million flights around the world. They estimate that with 5 million homes using a Wonderbag, 2.5 million carbon tonnes are saved every year.