Dynamics of sustained use and abandonment of clean cooking systems: lessons from rural India

Clean cooking technologies—ranging from efficient cookstoves to clean fuels—are widely deployed to reduce household air pollution and alleviate adverse health and climate consequences. Although much progress has been made on the technical aspects, sustained and proper use of clean cooking technologies by populations with the most need has been problematic. Only by understanding how clean cooking as an intervention is embedded within complex community processes can we ensure its sustained implementation. Using a community-based system dynamics approach, we engaged two rural communities in co-creating a dynamic model to explain the processes influencing the uptake and transition to sustained use of biogas (an anaerobic methane digester), a clean fuel and cooking technology. The two communities provided contrasting cases: one abandoned biogas while the other continues to use it. We present a system dynamics simulation model, associated analyses, and experiments to understand what factors drive transition and sustained use. A central insight of the model is community processes influencing the capacity to solve technical issues. Model analysis shows that families begin to abandon the technology when it takes longer to solve problems. The momentum in the community then shifts from a determination to address issues with the cooking technology toward caution in further adhering to it. We also conducted experiments using the simulation model to understand the impact of interventions aimed at renewing the use of biogas. A combination of theoretical interventions, including repair of non-functioning biogas units and provision of embedded technical support in communities, resulted in a scenario where the community can continue using the technology even after support is retracted. Our study also demonstrates the utility of a systems approach for engaging local stakeholders in delineating complex community processes to derive significant insights into the dynamic feedback mechanisms involved in the sustained use of biogas by the poor.