Understanding Consumer Preference and Willingness to Pay for Improved Cookstoves in Bangladesh

Abstract

The USAID/WASHplus project conducted a comprehensive assessment to understand consumer needs and preferences as they relate to increasing the uptake and consistent, exclusive, and correct use of improved cookstoves (ICSs) in Bangladesh. The assessment included household ICS trials, fuel and stove use monitoring, and consumers' perceived value of and willingness to pay for ICSs. Results showed that cooks appreciated and liked the ICS, but that no models met consumer needs sufficiently to replace traditional stoves. Initially, many preferred ICSs over traditional stoves, but this preference decreased over the 3-week trial period. Complaints and suggestions for improvement fell into two general categories: those that can be addressed through fairly simple modifications to the stove design, and those more appropriately addressed through point-of-purchase consumer education and follow-up from service agents or health outreach workers. Most households using the ICS realized fuel use reductions, although these were lower than expected, partly because of continued parallel traditional stove use. When given the option to purchase the stoves at market value, only one of 105 households did so; however, a separate assessment showed that 80% of participants (12 of 15 households) preferred to keep the stove rather than receive a cash buyout at market value. This indicates that users value the ICS when acquisition barriers are removed and highlights the need for better financing options.

Fuelwood Savings and Carbon Emission Reductions by the Use of Improved Cooking Stoves in an Afromontane Forest, Ethiopia

“…Although the selection of beneficiary households was not done on a random basis, ICS users probably constitute a representative sample of all targeted households by the dissemination project in the BR. The minimum usage time of two months was considered sufficient to fully adopt the ICS, since, contrary to many other ICS [39], stove design and the means of operation of the disseminated "Mirt" stoves do not differ greatly from traditional fireplaces to bake injera.…”

“…The results presented in Table 5 are based on household size and the number of injera sessions per week on average. Due to the questionnaire design, the fuelwood was weighed for a whole household, but for comparison reasons with other fuelwood estimations [6,39], the calculation was down-sampled per capita. The average household size was 5.97 (SD = 2.085) and was not significantly different between non-ICS and ICS-users.…”

Behavior Change Communication: A Key Ingredient for Advancing Clean Cooking

“…They explain the importance of understanding cultural practices driving the types of ventilation, floor material, and size of wood burned in order to promote healthier practices. Rosenbaum, Derby, and Dutta (2015) used formative research to understand consumer preferences for cookstove design and willingness to pay for new stoves in Bangladesh (Figure 1). Their findings suggest that incorporating desired stove attributes and financing options are necessary for people to sufficiently value a stove.…”

One-Off Subsidies and Long-Run Adoption Experimental Evidence on Improved Cooking Stoves in Senegal

“…Beltramo et al (2015), for example, applied Vickrey auctions to study the effect of marketing messages and payment over time on the uptake of improved cookstoves in Uganda. A simple analysis of WTP for ICS in Bangladesh using the Vickrey auction is conducted by Rosenbaum et al (2015). Alternatively, van der Kroon et al (2014) and Jeuland et al (2015) studied stove adoption preferences based on discrete choice methods that involved hypothetical decisions.…”