Sibabalwe Bakery

Behavioural Intervention for Safe Energy Adoption & Cookstove Transition

The Sibabalwe Bakery campaign was implemented to promote safe flame-based cooking practices. The behavioural intervention utilised a novel community-based bread-baking concept. Households in South Africa use dangerous and inefficient cookstoves facing significant health risks. In mitigation, we employed co-creative workshops and emo-demo campaigns, ultimately influencing motivations linked to cooking with fire resulting in positive shift in cookstove ownership patterns.

1. Executive Snapshot

• Role: Behavioural Researcher & Strategic Design Lead
• Duration: Multi-phase community intervention
• Context: Informal settlement households using unsafe flame-based cooking systems

Core Problem: Low adoption of safer cookstove technologies despite significant health and safety risks.

Outcome: Designed and implemented a community-based behavioural intervention using bread-baking as a participatory catalyst, contributing to measurable shifts in cookstove ownership patterns and safety perceptions.

2. Strategic Context

In many low-resource South African communities, households rely on open-flame cooking systems, paraffin, and biomass fuels, often within structurally unsafe stoves.

Consequences include: - Respiratory illness and indoor air pollution - Burn injuries - Fuel inefficiency and financial strain

Despite the availability of safer alternatives, adoption rates remained low because barriers were not purely economic—they were behavioural, cultural, and identity-linked. The challenge was shifted from a product distribution problem to a behavioural systems challenge: shifting motivations and norms without imposing external solutions.

3. Research & Diagnostic Phase

Research Questions

• What symbolic and cultural meanings are attached to cooking with fire?
• What prevents households from transitioning to safer cookstoves?
• Which social influences shape ownership decisions?
• How do risk perceptions align with daily lived realities?

Methods

• Ethnographic fieldwork and in-home observations
• Semi-structured interviews and behavioural mapping
• Co-creation workshops and informal community discussions
• Artefact analysis of existing stove types and usage patterns

Constraints

• Financial vulnerability and infrastructure instability
• Deep-rooted cooking traditions
• Trust barriers toward external interventions

Key Diagnostic Insight: The cookstove was not merely a utility device; it represented identity, competence, and family provision. Therefore, messaging focused solely on “health risks” failed to motivate change.

4. Key Behavioural Insights

1. Normalisation of Risk: Health dangers were acknowledged but behaviourally discounted.
2. Social Proof Dominance: Adoption decisions were strongly influenced by visible community norms.
3. Aspirational Identity Leverage: Participants responded better to narratives of capability and pride than to fear.
4. Demonstration Over Instruction: Hands-on experience produced stronger engagement than informational campaigns.

5. Intervention Design

The curriculum was structured around three behavioural pillars:

1. Reframe Cooking with Improved Cookstoves Rather than attacking the use of “inefficient” cooking methods, the intervention elevated controlled, skilled routines with improved cooking technologies through baking bread.
2. Social Visibility: Creating shared baking events to establish new behavioural routines and norms.
3. Emotional Demonstration (Emo-Demo): Using experiential sessions to embed safety practices through participation.

The Sibabalwe Bakery Model

The bakery acted as a stage for collective preparation, sharing, and open discussion of safe, clean and economically viable cooking practices.

6. Implementation

• Facilitated co-creative workshops with community ambassadors.
• Iterative refinement of demonstration formats based on cohort feedback.
• Embedded reflective discussions and monitoring of post-intervention choices.
• Adaptive pacing to manage resource constraints and infrastructure disruptions.

7. Impact & Evidence

Qualitative outcomes included: - Increased discussion and visibility of stove safety within households. - Shift in expressed motivations for stove choice. - Positive changes in ownership patterns following intervention cycles.

Behavioural indicators observed: - Participants voluntarily demonstrating safer cooking techniques to peers. - Organic emergence of peer-to-peer advocacy. - Increased inquiry into alternative, safer stove options.

8. Strategic Value & Transferability

This intervention demonstrates the application of behavioural design to digital and physical transformation. It provides a scalable model for:

• Public Health & Sustainability: Energy transition through social leverage.
• Corporate ESG: Community-driven norm transformation for product adoption.
• Policy Design: Workforce and community development through participatory interventions.