Spark+ Africa Fund in carbon finance deal

The Spark+ Africa Fund has provided $3.5 million in long-term carbon project financing to a Mauritius-based subsidiary of TASC. It is the fund’s sixth transaction since it launched in March 2022.

The project finance debt will enable TASC to distribute 90,000 wood cookstoves to bottom of the pyramid households in rural Zambia who are otherwise unable to afford high-quality improved cookstoves. The stove distribution will generate several million tonnes of emissions reductions, which have been pre-sold at a fixed price via an emission reduction purchase agreement (ERPA) with a multinational company active in the voluntary carbon market.

Stoves will be supplied by BURN Manufacturing, a Kenyan company that specialises in the design and manufacture of biomass, electric, and LPG cookstoves that save consumers time and money, improve health, reduce harmful pollution, and limit the use of wood and charcoal. In 2022, Spark+ invested in BURN via a long-term quasi-equity instrument.

Spark+ was advised by international law firm Morgan Lewis Bockius led by Boston-based partner Carl Valenstein, with support from London-based partner Ayesha Waheed, Philadelphia-based partner Kenneth Kulak, and London-based associate Opeyemi Atawo. Also supporting the transaction were Ibrahim Diallo and Alexander Johnson from the University of Michigan Law School’s International Transactions Clinic (ITC), with oversight by Clinic director David Guenther. TASC was advised by RWK Goodman led by London-based partner Paul Webb.