BURN Leveraging Nigeria’s Business Environment For $2.4bn Foreign Investment – Scott

Kindly talk us through what your mission is in Nigeria.

I started BURN in 2011 in the US to save lives. We are across Sub-Saharan Africa to make clean cooking products to help save a situation where people chop down trees for firewood to make food and the consequences of deforestation. About 600,000 people die yearly from inhaling smoke from inefficient cooking systems in the continent and this is a huge challenge. Our goal is to save lives, forests and money.  We are trying to make truly transformational products. That is what we have been doing in Nigeria and we have made 5 million of these products which saved lives and money.

Can you be more specific about these products?

We make the world’s most efficient charcoal stove as well as LPG ethanol stove. We have a variety of stoves. So far, we have made clean cooking stoves which allow you to use between 40% and 80% less fuel.  These products have huge benefits for people. Now, we are going into LPG stoves.  We do many things, we design products, we manufacture, and we do home delivery in Nigeria. We are working with the government and stakeholders in Nigeria to provide the right products for Nigerians. We have employed over 1000 people and we have the skill to make half a million stoves in a month.

Why did you choose Africa and Nigeria?

Our target is the whole continent and any place where people have the challenge of cooking. Nigeria is the biggest country on the continent. We would like to work with the government to introduce more LPG stoves because one of our goals is to bring clean cooking stoves to every person on the continent. Nigeria is our biggest business market and we are thinking of a carbon credit market model here.

Can you explain this carbon credit market and its benefits?

Our stoves may cost US$40 which is too expensive for people at the bottom. To offset this cost, we can raise money from investors. Therefore, instead of costing US$40, it can only cost US$5.  We will leverage the money from those investors in exchange for the future value of the products. So, how the carbon credits work is that you cover the value of the products and reinvest it to make more stoves and create more jobs.  This is the model that will enable us to keep billions of dollars in Nigeria and the continent.

What are the health benefits of these stoves?

Every year, about 600, 000 women and children die of carbon emissions in Africa from air pollution. The stoves we make can drop that indoor emission by between 60% and 100%. We are providing super-efficient biomass stoves, which allow people to save money and have less stress. The stoves also aid less indoor pollution and less pressure on the forest.  We will try to subsidize the products through the carbon credit model.

The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) is doing something similar.  Some time ago, they launched similar stoves to reduce carbon emissions.

 Do you have any kind of collaboration with the government for the mass production of these stoves?

The government has made a substantial commitment to rolling out clean cooking stoves for Nigerians. The goal is to bring 80 million clean cooking stoves to Nigeria and we would love to work with the government to roll out as many stoves as possible.

Do you have the raw materials to produce the stoves in Nigeria?

Because we make stoves that last between 5 and 10 years, we make them out of stainless steel. Unfortunately, we do not have indigenous stainless steel production in Nigeria.  Therefore, we buy raw sheets of metal from China and process them into finished goods in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.  Right now our factory in Kano is making about 35,000 stoves a month. We have the capacity for 100, 000 stoves currently but we would like to do a million per month.

No one else has the manufacturing acumen that BURN has. Right now, we have invested millions of dollars in our factory in Kenya. We have decided to replicate that in Nigeria and that decision has created thousands of jobs in diverse areas. There are design jobs, distribution jobs, manufacturing jobs, business, and market research. It is truly transformational.

The products are unique and they can be sold anywhere. We sell our products, which are made in Africa to Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and other places. This has shown that Africa can be a hub for manufacturing climate and environmentally-friendly products.

So far, how much have you invested in Nigeria?

Right now, if we do 80 million stoves, we would have invested about $2.4 billion. The key thing that is needed for that is an agreement with the government to give us a letter of authorization. We are working with the Ministry of Environment to issue that letter of authorization. Once we have that, we can go ahead and raise the money.

That initial investment can generate another $10 billion that will remain in Nigeria, creating thousands of jobs. In our factory, we already have over 1000 workers, which means more productivity and more income for the people and of course an improvement in the value chain.

How fast can you make this investment to increase employment?

We want to move as fast as we can.  We would like to build multiple factories in Nigeria. We already have one in Kano. We would like to build one in Lekki, Lagos. We are trying to move as fast as we can especially as Nigeria is rapidly growing in population. 80 million stoves for Nigeria with over 200 million people is a great target. We can invest more to create thousands of jobs.

With the current level of inflation and high exchange rate in Nigeria, how do hope to manage the situation?

The beauty of working within the carbon credit model is to raise money in US dollars because the carbon credit model generates more funds. The whole continent has been struggling with the devaluation of their local currencies and inflation but Nigeria remains our best market.  It is a matter of raising the investment and the investment flows through the letter of authorization. So, the partnership is absolutely critical.

Are you satisfied with the way the Nigerian government is responding to your investment in Nigeria, especially on the auspices of the Accelerated Stabilization and Advancement Plan (ASAP)?

We have been working closely with the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Agency (NSIA) for several years. They are moving very quickly on it. BURN is really a Pan-African Company and we have a great team here in Nigeria and we are moving fast in manufacturing these products.