TEM Managed: PNG Healthier Homes, Healthier Forests Cookstoves Project

Delivering clean cooking solutions that improve household health, protect forests and generate verified climate impact across Papua New Guinea’s Highlands.

Across the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, more than 90% of households still cook over open fires inside their homes. It is a practice woven into daily life — but one that fills homes with toxic smoke, consumes hours of labour each week (mostly carried by women and children), and drives the steady loss of some of the world's most biodiverse rainforests. The Healthier Homes, Healthier Forests project addresses all of this at once. By distributing high-efficiency improved cookstoves (read more about the cookstoves here) free of charge to households across four Highland provinces, the project cuts firewood consumption by around two-thirds, dramatically reduces indoor air pollution, and protects ecologically significant forests — all while generating verified, high-impact carbon credits.

Across the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, more than 90% of households still cook over open fires inside their homes. It is a practice woven into daily life — but one that fills homes with toxic smoke, consumes hours of labour each week (mostly carried by women and children), and drives the steady loss of some of the world's most biodiverse rainforests. The Healthier Homes, Healthier Forests project addresses all of this at once. By distributing high-efficiency improved cookstoves (read more about the cookstoves here) free of charge to households across four Highland provinces, the project cuts firewood consumption by around two-thirds, dramatically reduces indoor air pollution, and protects ecologically significant forests — all while generating verified, high-impact carbon credits.

Key facts

Project types

Improved Cookstoves

Location

Highland provinces, Papua New Guinea

Key impacts can include

TEM Owned and Managed

20,000 cookstoves delivered in Phase 1 (complete)

~3 million tCO₂e to be avoided over the project's 10-year lifetime

First project to issue credits under Verra's new VM0050 methodology

SD VISta certification across eight UN Sustainable Development Goals

Evidence of co-benefits/carbon claims

TEM is the project developer. From the original pilot in the Southern Highlands in 2023, through Verra registration, methodology transition to VM0050, the build-out of local field teams, the first verification audit by SustainCERT, and the world-first VCU issuance in August 2025 — TEM’s International Projects team has led every step.

What TEM brings:

– 20+ years of carbon market experience across the Asia-Pacific

– End-to-end project development capability — from feasibility and registration through delivery, MRV and issuance

– Deep, long-standing relationships in PNG, anchored by formal partnership with the CCDA

– A track record of integrity — applying the strictest available methodologies and welcoming third-party scrutiny

For buyers, this means working directly with the developer — no intermediaries, full transparency, and a direct line into the team delivering impact on the ground.

Carbon credits tell only part of the story. The co-benefits — the cleaner air, the reclaimed hours, the new jobs, the school attendance — are what makes a project like this transformational.

SD VISta (Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard) is Verra’s program for independently certifying these co-benefits. Unlike self-reported impact claims, SD VISta requires third-party expert auditors to verify that a project genuinely advances the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Community and clean cooking

A cleaner way to cook

The project’s improved cookstove compared to a traditional three-stone open fire — and the wider benefits it brings.

Three-stone open fire baseline

✕Burns large amounts of wood
✕Heavy indoor smoke and PM2.5
✕3–5 firewood trips every week

Improved cookstove the project stove

✓Uses 71% less wood
✓81% lower emissions, less smoke
✓Equivalent or improved cooking

LESS WOOD USED

71%

LOWER EMISSIONS

81%

THERMAL EFFICIENCY

51%

Co-benefits independently verified under the Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta) for issued credits — certified in 2025.

Phase 1 impact, aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

20,000 stoves installed in the Southern Highlands, with Phase 2 scaling toward 200,000 households.

SDG 1 No poverty

Replaced 20,000 traditional stoves, reducing household firewood expenses and easing economic pressure. Target: 200,000 households.

SDG 3 Good health and well-being

Cut indoor PM2.5 emissions by 81.24% (943.3 to 177 mg/MJ), avoiding 244.79 tonnes of PM2.5. 100% of households report less smoke.

SDG 4 Quality education

Trained 24 local staff in climate and stove-monitoring skills, all achieving the 70% pass rate. Goal: 130 trained individuals.

SDG 5 Gender equality

Reduced firewood collection from 3–5 trips/week to 1 trip/week, eliminating 762,759 trips. 37.5% of staff are women, against a 50% target.

SDG 7 Affordable and clean energy

Installed 20,000 improved cookstoves in the Southern Highlands, progressing toward 200,000 clean-cooking households.

SDG 8 Decent work and economic growth

Created 24 jobs (2 full-time, 22 part-time). Average part-time earnings of K 1,343.33/month, well above the K 439/month informal-sector baseline.

SDG 13 Climate action

Achieved 13,585 tCO₂ reductions in the initial monitoring period, with each stove estimated to reduce 3.20 tCO₂e annually.

SDG 15 Life on land

Saved 13,525 tonnes of biomass (3.70 tonnes per stove per year), reducing pressure on surrounding forests and boosting above-ground biomass.

Built for compliance markets: Article 6 and CORSIA readiness

This project is purpose-built to meet the integrity standards that compliance buyers require.

ARTICLE 6 LETTER OF AUTHORIZATION (LOA)

Papua New Guinea signed an Implementation Agreement with Singapore in December 2023 under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The project is hosted in PNG with the Climate Change and Development Authority (CCDA) as a delivery partner, and is positioned to be among the first PNG-originated projects able to issue authorized credits once PNG’s Article 6 framework is operationalized. Revenue flows directly to CCDA, supporting national climate action aligned with PNG’s NDC.

CORSIA ELIGIBILITY

The project is registered under VM0050, one of only three cookstove methodologies approved by the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) as eligible for the Core Carbon Principles (CCP) label. CCP-eligible credits meet the integrity standards required by CORSIA (the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation), positioning this project for aviation-sector procurement as CORSIA Phase 2 ramps up from 2027.

For buyers anticipating Article 6 demand or CORSIA-aligned procurement, this project’s robust MRV, independent verification by SustainCERT, and alignment with CCP standards provide the credibility and audit trail compliance markets require.