We Are Transforming Traditional Cooking For A Greener Tomorrow: Ankit Mathur, Greenway Grameen

Around 41%  of the population in India depends on the biomass fuels like wood and cow dung for cooking, as per Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) Report 2024. This percentage is enough to generate 340 million tonnes of CO2 emission each year. Is there any possibility to decrease the 41% to any shorter number? It will, gradually, as no one has any magical wand to reverse it. There are solution entrepreneurs working to reduce it, like Greenway Grameen. The company's solution doesn't shift people away from biomass, since they often collect it for free. Instead, they make it more efficient to use the same fuel. Yes, their stoves are designed to burn biomass more cleanly, using combustion mechanisms that significantly reduce or eliminate smoke—without requiring fuel processing at a central facility.

Ankit Mathur, Co-founder and CEO of Greenway Grameen, is a mechanical engineer with a management degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, who started his career in ed-tech, renewable energy consulting, and carbon credits. Thirteen years of experience in the mentioned sectors carved his path to founding Greenway Grameen. Since then, the company has already sold 34 lakh stoves in India and South African regions. The company has already established its presence in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Karnataka, and is planning to expand into Maharashtra and Telangana.

In this interview, Mathur shares insights into his journey, the challenges of scaling impact-driven products, and the evolving landscape of energy access in India.

Are you only into cookstoves, or do you have something to do with other renewable energy solutions?Many rural households do not have LPG or have reliable electricity for cooking, we are designing and manufacturing efficient products that work with the fuels they use now. We are not in the gas business; we are in manufacturing stoves. Our focus is really on improved biomass cookstoves-creating very efficient and clean solutions for burning that.

Can you explain a bit more about the improved cookstoves?
Fuels like firewood, agro-waste, and dry cow dung do not burn without sufficient restriction. There are people, below poverty line, particularly in South Asia and sub-Saharan African countries, still depend on these for cooking, using simple open fires or mud stoves for this purpose.

This exposes the primary cook, mostly a female, to harmful smoke, eye irritation, coughing problems, and even more severe health problems after some time. They also go fetching wood every day, increasing their daily burden. Besides, biomass combustion is a substantial source of indoor air pollution as well as regional haze, like in the Indo-Gangetic plains. Our solution doesn’t shift people away from biomass, since they often collect it for free. Instead, we make it more efficient to use the same fuel. Our stoves, made of steel and aluminum, are designed to burn biomass more cleanly, using combustion mechanisms that significantly reduce or eliminate smoke—without needing fuel processing at a central facility.

It burns unprocessed fuels while reducing emissions and fuel consumption, and it transfers more heat to the cooking vessel. Essentially, you burn much less fuel and produce far less smoke.

As a result, not only does the cooking experience improve, but users also spend less time collecting fuel and are exposed to less direct heat and radiation while cooking.

That means the carbon reduction impact is measurable, right? Since it uses less fuel and produces less smoke, how do you measure this reduction? Can you share some before-and-after numbers?
I will start by talking about fuel consumption, as calculating carbon emissions directly is more complex. Typically, an Indian household of 5–7 people in a village burns around 7 to 10 kilos of firewood daily for cooking—morning, afternoon, and evening. And since most village households don’t have pre-cooked meals or pre-processed fuel, they cook fresh every time, which means the chulha stays lit for longer.

Now, when a household switches to a Greenway stove—our flagship product is the Greenway Jumbo Stove—the firewood consumption drops to around 3 to 5 kilos per day. That’s a clear 50–60% reduction.

This also means significantly less time spent gathering firewood. You can measure this impact with a simple five-day test: track firewood used for cooking on a traditional mud stove, then compare it to five days of usage with a Greenway Jumbo Stove. Once you gather this data across a statistically significant sample, you can extrapolate the results to a wider population.

This is how we estimate carbon reduction: First, we establish the baseline consumption at the household level. Then, we measure how it changes with our technology. Once we ensure that the data is representative of a broader population, we can estimate the carbon reduction.

Biomass isn’t entirely non-renewable—it regenerates. The actual carbon reduction estimation involves a longer lifecycle analysis, but this is the starting point.

And in a sense, if people are using dried cow dung or agro-waste, that's considered renewable—because it's part of the ongoing carbon cycle, right? However, if biomass is being collected from areas where the carbon stock is declining—especially areas that aren't designated forests—then a portion of it can be considered non-renewable. There are extensive databases available that help estimate the proportion of non-renewable biomass in such cases. That non-renewable portion is what’s used in calculating carbon reductions.

What are the main benefits of replacing traditional mud stoves with Greenway stoves, especially in rural areas?
The biggest benefit of replacing mud stoves with Greenway stoves lies in the significant reduction in the amount of firewood that users need to collect and burn. Additionally, because our stoves burn more cleanly, they emit much less black carbon and carbon monoxide. That makes them far safer for indoor use compared to traditional mud stoves.

Now, over time, when the primary cook—typically a woman—uses the product, they need to collect less firewood and travel shorter distances. One of the unexpected benefits we've seen is in buffer forest zones, where reduced firewood collection lowers the chances of man-animal conflict. If someone goes to collect wood in the evening and encounters a wild animal, it can be dangerous. While rare, such incidents do happen, and cutting down on these trips helps reduce those risks.

Q. What are the key advantages of using Greenway stoves in terms of health, safety, and the environment?
If you visit a household using a Greenway stove, you will see that the walls and ceilings are far less blackened compared to homes using mud stoves. Our stoves are also portable, so they can be used outdoors or indoors with better ventilation. That adds to the health and comfort of users.

So, yes, the benefits span from fuel efficiency and emissions reduction to health, safety, and even improved air quality at a local level.

There are multiple benefit in terms of better ventilation, better lighting, and a host of other advantages—both at the household level and the community level. Absolutely right. Now, coming to the health point of view.

So, you must have observed a transformation in the lives of rural women in terms of health, and in terms of savings and empowerment. Can you provide any numbers on the health hazards they were facing earlier and how that’s changed?
One of the major benefits is that our stove is enclosed on all sides—unlike a traditional mud stove. This significantly reduces the risk of burns, both for women and for infants or children who are often around during cooking. This is an important benefit that doesn’t get highlighted much in literature, but it’s very real.

Then, of course, there’s the health benefit of inhaling much less smoke. Women report significantly fewer instances of coughing and eye irritation when using a Greenway stove. These benefits are especially noticed by younger women who switch to our stoves—older women who’ve spent decades using mud stoves sometimes don’t perceive the improvement as strongly, although the change is still happening physiologically.

Another aspect is our air induction mechanism—it’s very efficient and eliminates the need for a blowpipe. Without a blowpipe, you avoid inhaling concentrated smoke during kindling or when trying to keep the fire going. That’s a major health improvement we have seen reflected in our feedback.

So overall, we see three major health benefits: fewer burns, less eye irritation, and a significant reduction in coughing. On top of that, there's much less ambient heat in the kitchen since more of the heat is going directly into the cooking vessel. That makes the cooking environment more comfortable and allows women to multitask or stay in the kitchen longer without discomfort.

Also, because our stove doesn’t blacken the walls and kitchen space, the lighting remains better. That helps preserve eyesight over time—people don’t need to strain their eyes as much, and there’s less buildup of soot.

What role do women play in the distribution and education of others in rural areas? Since you are present in both Africa and India, could you also share which regions in India you cover? Additionally, how many stoves have you sold since 2008?
We have distributed over 32 lakh stoves since early 2012, which is when our first prototype and factory batch were ready for sale. In late 2014, we also set up our own manufacturing unit.

That gave us the stability to start offering more secure jobs and the confidence to engage directly with households. We began partnering more actively with microfinance institutions, which are usually women-led at the grassroots level.

Apart from our partnerships with MFIs, we also have a direct-to-customer team—comprising women who work at the community level to spread awareness about our cookstoves and other products.

Currently, our operations are mainly in Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Karnataka. We're in the process of expanding into Maharashtra and Telangana as well.

And now, let’s come to the investment part. Since 2011—were you importing in the beginning?
No, this has been a Make in India product from day one—designed in India, manufactured in India, using entirely local raw materials. In the early years, we worked with contract manufacturers who produced based on our design.

In 2014, we set up our own manufacturing unit, and since then, all production has been in-house. I’m speaking to you from our manufacturing facility in Vadodara right now.

How much investment did you make in 2014?
I don’t remember the exact numbers. However, in late 2015, we raised roughly 1.5 million dollars from impact investors, Acumen, and Asha Impact. Before that, we were mostly bootstrapped, supported by smaller grants, and ran things through our own revenues.

The investment came in 2015, and since then, we’ve grown a lot. We set up a new manufacturing facility to expand into energy access, including electricity and storage solutions.
We’ve invested roughly 12 crores in this facility.

Solar panel installations will reach new heights in the next two years. According to the Pradhan Mantri Surya Shakti program, by 2027, they need to install 30 to 40 lakh solar panels, but only 9 lakh have been installed so far. We need more hands to install solar panels.

A lot of capital has gone into manufacturing solar modules, but we can contribute by connecting with the community and executing installations on the ground. We aim to help customers who struggle to afford or finance these solutions. Our cook stove business continues to move forward.

With our stoves, everything is recyclable—made of steel and aluminum. The journey with semiconductors and solar is still in early stages, and there’s a lot of innovation happening.

How affordable and accessible are your products in remote areas?
We feel there’s more to be done in terms of access. In places where we are present, especially in MP or parts of Karnataka, we work with networks of women in rural areas and have warehouses for deliveries to village-level distribution points.

If inquiries come from areas we serve, we can service them quickly. But for areas like rural North East, we rely on couriers or India Post to ship the goods from Baroda.

For affordability, we have worked with microfinance institutions, non-banking financial companies, and banks to offer financing options. Customers can pay in installments rather than upfront.

Our stoves are priced at 2500 and 3500 rupees. The Greenway Jumbo Stove costs 3499 rupees. Many customers prefer to pay in monthly installments, so we work with financing companies to make this possible.

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