About Himalayan Stove Project

About us

Our Story

We deliver fuel efficient, low polluting, cookstoves to people in the high Himalayas of Nepal, reducing Household Air Pollution (HAP) by up to 90%, using 75% less fuel, and cooking up to twice as fast. We transform the life of a family in the ten minutes it takes to install a stove, and our Nepal-made chimney system .
Our Envirofit stoves are effective – saving many lives, as well as helping our planet earth in our state of global warming.

Our founder, George Basch, first visited Nepal in 2001, helping provide base-camp support for blind climber Erik Weihenmayer’s successful summit of Mount Everest, and was exposed to the wretched smoke in Sherpa homes, where they were using yak dung for fuel, with no ventilation.

In 2009, George was trekking in the barren, upper Mustang region of Nepal, and encountered the same conditions in people’s homes. Later that year, in Bhutan, someone told him about a very fuel efficient, low polluting stove. It was a light-bulb moment. He had observed a problem, and here was a potential solution...

Our Stoves

Our clean cookstoves transform lives by lowering levels of damaging indoor air pollution and reducing the hours of daily labor necessary to collect fuel.

More Quick Facts on these incredible stoves:

*Reduces smoke and harmful gasses by up to 90%

*Reduces biomass fuel use by up to 75%

*Reduces cooking time by up to 50%

*Less wood usage helps preserve fragile ecosystems

*Less time needed to gather fuel

*Reduced carbon output

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Our Mission

The Himalayan Stove Project is a humanitarian & philanthropic program. It is dedicated to preserving the Himalayan environment and improving the health of the people living in the trans-Himalayan region. We donate and distribute free, clean-burning, fuel-efficient cookstoves, transforming the lives of individuals and families who now cook with traditional, rudimentary stoves or over open fire pits inside their homes, consuming excessive amounts of precious fuel and polluting the indoor air to dangerously unhealthy levels.

OUR NEWS

Our Success

To date, we have delivered over 6,000 clean cookstoves, and helped improve the lives of over 50,000 people. Remember that when you (or a group) donates 1 stove, or 5, or 20, you are transforming the lives of that many families, and also helping reduce the overall pollution in their community and beyond, thus playing an incremental role in helping to slow global warming.

We are frequently asked whether we'll expand beyond Nepal. The estimated need in Nepal is for 1 million clean cookstoves. Our goal is to continue to raise the funds to meet this need. With continued and increased support, we will have delivered 6,000 clean cookstoves by the end of 2019, so…only 994,000 to go!

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Our Team

Click on the photographs below to read members biographies

Pam Miller

Executive Director

George Basch

Founder, "Chief Cook" and Board Member

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Yale Jones

Board Member and Secretary of the Board of Directors

Our Advisory Board

Click on the photographs below to read members biographies

Several Advisory Board members are directly affiliated with (and manage, in some instances) our Himalayan Associates and Partners.

Many of our dedicated Advisory Board members are among the most accomplished Himalayan Mountaineers of all time.

They possess additional skills and experience which they bring to the Himalayan Stove project – High Altitude Medicine, working with Non-Profit organizations in Nepal (and in the UK and the USA) and just a huge amount of hands-on experience and “common sense”.

They are all immensely valuable members of our team, contributing from their diverse and extensive experience, and we are honored to be guided by their wisdom and are grateful for their selfless service.

Sir Chris Bonington

Advisory Board Member

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Our Himalayan Partners

Our local Himalayan Partners carry out the important job of distributing the stoves to families in Nepal.

Our Himalayan Associates and Partners are the real heroes of this program. They efficiently and cost-effectively manage and implement the crucial distribution and installation process, and give instruction and education to our end-users so that they and their families and the environment get the greatest benefit from the stoves.