Efficient Cookstove Partner Wins Haiti Entrepreneur of the Year Contest

by Allison Archambault

EarthSpark friend and Enèji Pwòp cookstove supplier D+E Green Enterprises won the Digicel Entrepreneur of the Year competition in the Environment category. The Clean Energy Store (Enèji Pwòp) has been featuring D+E’s ‘Eco-Recho’ since the store’s opening, and customers love the product. Enèji Pwòp’s manager is hoping to expand sales of the efficient stove through an expanded marketing campaign in the coming months.

Congratulations to Duquesne Fednard, Fritz Fednard, and the entire D+E Green Enterprises Team!

Duquesne Fednard is one of a family of seven who have engaged in entrepreneurial activity in Haiti spanning 20 years. The family businesses comprise Haiti’s largest mechanical shop, a mechanical engineering school, secondary level school, and a third level education college offering up to twenty courses. The latest innovation is the development of EcoRecho - a fuel efficient charcoal stove for the Haitian market. The EcoRecho is the brainchild of Duquesne Fednard who boasts many years of entrepreneurial, operations, business management, and finance experience in companies at home and abroad. He wanted to create something that would have multiple impacts on Haiti. The EcoRecho project provides a high-quality, affordable alternative to replace the inefficient traditional metal charcoal burners. The improved charcoal stove design has been shown to reduce charcoal consumption in households by an average of 50%. It significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously offering benefits to families of relief from high fuel costs and reduced exposure to health-damaging airborne pollutants. This new product development has created 28 permanent jobs since its launch and anticipates creating an additional 50 jobs by the end of this year. The company currently has 20 distributors and has sold over 5000 stoves in the Port-au-Prince area. Following recent investment in new machinery they believe the output and sales will increase to 30,000 stoves in less than a year – this impact on the environment alone will be very significant.

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