Sichuan Household Biogas Programme
Clean, Affordable and Convenient Biogas for Poor Rural Households
Clean, Affordable and Convenient Biogas for Poor Rural Households
The rural areas in Sichuan Province are among the least developed in China. The average annual per capita income for poor farmer household in Sichuan is approximately 500 Euro, and the province contains 43 counties that have been officially defined as national poverty counties in order to qualify for economic assistance from the government.
Sichuan is also highly vulnerable to natural disasters. In 2008, a heavy earthquake claimed the lives of nearly 70,000 people and left another 4.8 million homeless. In addition, an estimated 12 million animals of productive livestock were killed during the devastating event.
To make people’s lives better while helping to protect the earth’s climate, UPM’s Sichuan Household Biogas Programme of Activities (PoA) shall provide up to one million low-income rural households in China’s Sichuan province with proven and reliable biogas digesters and efficient biogas cook stoves. The digester tanks are fed with animal manure, previously just discharged into open pits, and convert it into clean and affordable biogas to be used conveniently for cooking, heating, or lighting instead of coal and firewood. After switching to biogas, each participating smallholder farmer family saves roundabout 2 tCO2e of methane and carbon dioxide emissions year by year.
All biogas equipment distributed under this programme is installed and maintained by the Sichuan Rural Energy Office (SREO) via its dense network of local service centers and its many certified biogas technicians all over Sichuan.
Contribution to achieving UN sustainable development goals
According to a scientific study by the Center for Sustainable Environmental Sanitation (CSES) at the University of Science & Technology in Beijing, UPM’s Sichuan Household Biogas PoA substantially improves the lives of nearly 400,000 smallholder households or 1.2 million needy people and verifiably helps achieving the UN SDGs.
The PoA’s positive impact on UN SDGs 3, 6, 7, 8, 13 has been verified by the Gold Standard for the Global Goals (GS4GG).
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