Greenway Tawi ESSE Tawi

Greenway and ESSE Tawis

The original garden design

Carbon farming at home: while you are cooking, the Tawi Stove turns fuel wood into solid carbon instead of carbon dioxide.

The sustainable alternative to a traditional barbecue.

Almost everyone enjoys a barbecue with their friends and family, but may not be aware of the environmental impact they are having. Using charcoal in a traditional barbecue releases toxic smoke and carbon dioxide; the same harmful greenhouse gas which is warming our world. It’s not just what comes out of your BBQ that’s the problem, it’s how charcoal is made and where it comes from.

Instead of releasing carbon dioxide, we need to be capturing it in as many ways as we can. That’s where Carbon Farming comes in. Our compact garden stove, or Tawi,  is an innovative way of doing just that. (‘Tawi’ is a Swahili word meaning sticks or twigs). A Tawi will allow you to enjoy a barbecue while actually having a positive impact on the climate and environment.  It does this by turning the carbon contained within the sticks you are burning into useful solid carbon (biochar), instead of harmful carbon dioxide. The process it uses is virtually smoke free, which is much better for the environment and your health than a traditional charcoal barbecue. 

If you would like to help fight climate change, and would welcome a more environmentally ethical way to cook outdoors, then you will find Carbon Farming with a Tawi Stove both fun and rewarding. 

Benefits for the

World

Capture carbon

Reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released is no longer enough. We now have to capture and store it. 

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Help reduce charcoal use

Most charcoal burnt in traditional barbecues comes from unsustainable tropical forests. It is made using inefficient, polluting kilns. The Tawi is designed to burn fallen sticks that you can collect for yourself!

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Helping soil cope with climate extremes

Until recently adding biochar to fertile soils has delivered little benefit. That has all changed as we start to to see more extreme weather patterns. Biochar now has an important role to play. 

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Benefits for

You

Instant smoke-free cooking

With four cooking surfaces and a smokeless flame giving instant heat, we believe the Tawi is the most versatile, fuel efficient, outdoor stove on the market.

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Free biochar for life

Biochar is an amazing substance with a multitude of uses. The Tawi stove will make it for you for the rest of your life.

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Reduce fossil fuel use

Reducing fossil fuel use is a genuine aspiration for many concerned about the future of our planet. Each meal cooked on the Tawi stove is a small but real contribution, especially if you can collect your own free fuel.

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Our house manager in Kenya, Margaret, with the original stove in 2002
Testing a fire cement version of the stove in 2020
Trying out our prototype garden stove in 2020
The ESSE Tawi stove in 2022

A little bit about

Our Story

We started developing biochar-making stoves in Kenya at the turn of the century. Previously, employees of our family business used to cut wood for fuel out of our local forest. To save the forest we had to find a sustainable alternative. We also needed to find a cheap and reliable way to filter drinking water from our only water source, the local river. Our stoves solved both problems. It produced clean energy, was very economical, and made excellent activated carbon (high quality biochar) for use in water filters. Now we only burn fallen sticks gathered from the forest floor; we have not chopped a tree down for firewood since 2002! We have also made hundreds of kilos of biochar. If our experience could be replicated worldwide, then hundreds of kilos of biochar would become millions. If you can help us harness the power of social media, and we can share this technology across the world, this could become a reality.

Become a

Carbon Farmer

Buy your own Tawi Stove to begin carbon negative cooking at your home. 

Follow us on social media for frequent updates on recipe ideas, what to do with your biochar and new ways in which to use your Tawi Stove