Over 4 million people die each year from exposure to cookstove smoke, making household air pollution the fourth biggest health risk in the world [1]. It is also highly toxic for the environment. ISO has developed a number of international standards to support new technologies and solutions for cleaner methods of cooking. The latest in the range, ISO 19869, Clean cookstoves and clean cooking solutions — Field testing methods for cookstoves, evaluates existing methods for the testing of cookstoves and provides guidance on developing new ones.
The guidance covers field testing methods that evaluate all aspects of cookstove performance including cooking power, efficiency, safety, indoor air quality, device usability and more.
Dr Ranyee Chiang, chair of the ISO technical committee that developed the standard said testing of cookstoves in real situations is essential to assess the impact on both users and the environment, thus allowing for improvements to be made.
“There are various testing protocols already in existence to assess things like fuel consumption, emissions, air pollution and durability amongst other things. However, these are mostly done for specific projects by individual groups,” she said.
Where common protocols exist such as the Controlled Cooking Test (CCT) and the Kitchen Performance Test (KPT), she explained, they have few indicators other than fuel consumption.
“Until now there is no formal international guidance on field testing protocols that address a broad range of factors. ISO 19869 is therefore designed to fill that gap.”
ISO 19869 joins other ISO documents by the same committee, namely ISO 19867-1, Clean cookstoves and clean cooking solutions — Harmonized laboratory test protocols, Part 1: Standard test sequence for emissions and performance, safety and durability, and ISO/TR 19867-3, Clean cookstoves and clean cooking solutions — Harmonized laboratory test protocols, Part 3: Voluntary performance targets for cookstoves based on laboratory testing, as well as ISO/TR 21276, Clean cookstoves and clean cooking solutions — Vocabulary.
The standards support the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 3: Good health and wellbeing as well as UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 7: Affordable and clean energy and contribute to the Clean Cooking Alliance’s mission to ensure universal adoption of clean cooking solutions.
They were developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 285, Clean cookstoves and clean cooking solutions, the secretariat for which is held by KEBS, ISO’s member for Kenya.