01/02/2026
Seeing Change Stall: Lessons in People, Persistence, and Impact
Seeing this unfold is tough for the families, the employees, and the movement 😢 As someone who’s seen the impact of clean cooking firsthand, this news is… devastating…
(Friday 30th January 2026)
https://techcabal.com/2026/01/31/koko-shut-down-carbon-credits-dispute/
Homes had been delivered from charcoal to firewood, and suddenly, the tiny Koko kiosks started popping up everywhere in my neighborhood. I would see the Koko-branded trucks come to refill the kiosks I didn’t even know what that process was called. I would see kids with those little flasks going to the Koko ATM thing to fill them up.
In the beginning, when they were just starting out, I would see the sales executives walking around with the little flasks and tiny cookers, demonstrating how it worked. On my walks to exercise, I would encounter 3 groups of them from my house to the main road!
And I get it I know how it feels to be a salesperson, going door to door, trying to get someone to listen to your pitch. I would always stop, watch the demonstration, go “Wow!” like it was the first time I was seeing it, and even give them my phone number to support them. Years of working across hospitality, sales, marketing, and project management have given me a deep appreciation for persistence, relationship-building, and understanding people and markets and seeing these teams in action really brought that home.
So it hits me hard to see this: Koko Networks has shut down. The entire 700-person workforce laid off. Operations stopped. All because the government blocked their sale of carbon credits the very thing that kept their clean-fuel model alive.
This isn’t just about a business. This is about over 1.5 million households potentially being pushed back to dirtier, more polluting fuels. About families losing safer ways to cook. About a movement that was making a real difference, collapsing overnight.
💔 This is a lesson for all of us: solutions alone aren’t enough. We need supportive policies, sustainable funding, and collaboration between government, investors, civil society, and communities if we want startups to truly change lives. For the clean cooking movement in Kenya, this is a setback but it’s also a call to action. We must protect, support, and champion solutions that make our homes safer and our planet cleaner.
🌍
KOKO NETWORKS LTD
Kenya Climate Innovation Center
Clean Cooking Alliance
UNDP Kenya
WWF-Kenya Ministry of Energy, Kenya
🍃 Anita Soina , The Green MP Liz Hernandez Aden Duale
🌟 State House Kenya
