About

Marc A. Jeuland is a faculty member at the Sanford School of Public Policy, where he serves as Professor and Faculty Director of the Energy Access Project in the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. He holds multiple academic titles, including Professor of Global Health, Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Professor in the Division of Environmental Social Systems. Additionally, he is a Faculty Research Scholar of DuPRI's Population Research Center and an affiliate of the Duke Center for International Development. His research focuses on energy access, climate change, and innovative solutions such as solar mini-grids, artificial worlds for energy data accessibility, and satellite and AI technologies for climate change tracking. He has been featured in podcasts discussing the impact of solar mini-grids on farmers in Ethiopia and the importance of innovative thinking to combat climate change.

Research topics

• Economics
• Environmental health
• Water resource management
• Geography
• Engineering
• Environmental science
• Medicine
• Economic growth
• Business
• Socioeconomics
• Environmental planning
• History
• Natural resource economics
• Environmental engineering
• Environmental economics
• Agricultural economics
• Mechanical engineering
• Econometrics
• Development economics
• Archaeology

Selected publications

• Prevalence of plastic waste as a household fuel in low-income communities of the Global South

  Nature Communications · 2026-01-08 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Anecdotal evidence suggests that households burn plastics to manage waste and help satisfy their energy demand. To examine the prevalence, extent, and reasons for using plastic waste as household fuel, we report on a survey with 1018 key informants from cities in 26 countries in the Global South. Informants were purposively selected due to their familiarity with the living conditions in their communities. One-third of respondents reported being aware of plastic waste burning, with some reporting that their households engaged in this practice. Analyses of the data reveal significant correlations of plastic waste burning with both supply factors, such as, the massive amount of waste generated (p = 0.000), expensive clean fuels (p = 0.004), and demand factors, including self-management of waste (p = 0.000). Expanding essential public waste management services and implementing programs that enhance the affordability of clean energy technologies, especially among marginalized and low-income communities, could reduce this health- and environment-damaging practice. This study surveyed key informants across 26 countries on burning plastic for waste management and energy needs. It finds high awareness of this practice, with potential drivers including inadequate waste collection and a lack of affordable fuels.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Willingness to pay for climate mitigation: Evidence from Latin America

  Journal of Environmental Economics and Management · 2026-01-23

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Beyond access: clean energy use in low-income and middle-income countries

  The Lancet Global Health · 2026-03-17 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Access to clean energy-here defined as electricity, liquefied petroleum gas, biogas, and ethanol-has increased substantially in low-income and middle-income countries over the past three decades.However, millions still lack reliable and affordable access to electricity and clean cooking fuels.This Series paper explores the drivers of clean energy adoption, assesses tools for tracking progress, and examines persistent barriers-including high costs, unreliable supply, and insufficient availability.Simplistic metrics, such as Sustainable Development Goal 7's binary indicators (eg, whether an individual has an electricity connection or not), risk overstating the health and equity impacts of energy transitions by overlooking fuel stacking, dynamic consumption patterns, and the gendered burden of polluting fuels.Drawing from historical trends and national policies, we show how targeted subsidies, robust supply chains, and coordinated investments have spurred increased clean fuel use.Meaningful gains require moving beyond technical fixes to inclusive, evidence-based strategies that address inequities, ensure affordability and reliability, and deliver lasting health benefits. Key messages Clean energy is central to global health, yet billions depend on polluting fuels Economic constraints are the primary determinants of fuel choices and therefore health outcomes Current metrics for clean energy access exaggerate progress and obscure health risks Targeted subsidies, robust supply chains, and coordinated investments have driven progress More rigorous causal evaluations of clean energy policy's health and climate impact are needed Streamlined, transparent funding is essential to meet health and climate goals www.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A research agenda to support the achievement of clean cooking for all

  Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) · 2026-03-18

  articleOpen access

  Achieving universal access to clean cooking is essential for improving health, equality, environmental, and other sustainability outcomes. Yet without accelerated action, 1.8 billion people will still lack access to clean cooking in 2030. Research can support the design of evidence-based clean cooking strategies that are tailored to local realities. Here, we propose a research agenda to accelerate clean cooking transitions. Key areas of focus include enhancing modern and clean technologies, developing better and more inclusive planning tools, integrating co-benefits, addressing behavioral and affordability challenges, fostering innovative policy and business models, as well as understanding the political economy of clean cooking. For such research to be effective in empowering local communities, attention to clean cooking needs to be more effectively integrated into educational curricula and embody the principles of interdisciplinary and open science. Collaborative efforts are imperative to drive this transition and achieve significant benefits across sustainable development spheres.

  Publisher

• Beyond Access: Clean Energy use in Low-and Middle-Income Countries

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Powering Livelihoods by Avoiding Household Damages: Household Willingness to Pay For Electricity Reliability in Sierra Leone 

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Transition to Low-Carbon Ag-Tech Solutions: A Marketing Campaign for Adoption of Solar Irrigation Pumps in Kenya

  AEA Randomized Controlled Trials · 2025-06-27

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• Does the payment vehicle matter for valuing improved electricity reliability? A discrete choice experiment in Ethiopia

  Utilities Policy · 2025-02-01

  articleOpen access

  Frequent and prolonged power outages severely impede business operations in many developing countries. Given resource constraints, estimating the value of improved electricity reliability in such contexts is crucial for justifying related investments. This analysis uses a split-sample design to examine whether business enterprises in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, have different valuations for improved power supply reliability under two payment vehicles (electricity bill increases and tax revenue allocation). Results show that these businesses are willing to pay (WTP) an average of US$33 per year for a 1-h monthly reduction in outages and US$24 per year for one less outage per month. These amounts represent approximately 11% and 8% of the typical annual electricity bill of 10,615 Birr (US$295), respectively, highlighting that businesses place substantial value on electricity reliability. We find no significant differences in preferences or WTP estimates between the bill and tax payment vehicle sub-samples, suggesting that tax payment vehicles are as credible as bill increases in stated preference studies and that multiple mechanisms for financing power reliability investments may be feasible in practice. Highlights • Used a split sample design to elicit WTP for improved electricity reliability in Ethiopia. • Business enterprises are WTP more for a better quality of electricity supply. • No significant difference between bill and tax payment vehicles.

  PublisherDOI

• The Costs and Benefits of Clean Cooking Policies in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries Under Real‐World Conditions

  Sustainable Development · 2025-04-02 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT Clean cooking technologies have the potential to deliver substantial health, environmental, climate, and gender equity benefits. We use the BAR‐HAP model to conduct the first global analysis of the regional and global costs and benefits of several subsidy and financing policies supporting household transitions to cleaner technologies. The analysis provides evidence‐based estimates of these interventions' impacts, while remaining conservative about factors such as stove usage, subsidy leakage, and exposure levels, for which there remains considerable uncertainty. These conservative assumptions notwithstanding, we show that policies supporting a clean cooking transition would deliver net benefits of 1.4 trillion USD from 2020 to 2050 across 120 LMICs; the promotion of improved‐efficiency biomass stoves alongside fully clean technologies yields lower net social benefits. Most monetized benefits are from health—especially mortality—improvements, followed by averted CO2e. Although considerable investment will be needed to realize these benefits, the economic case for scaling up policy action is strong. Moreover, because the effectiveness of cooking transition policies is currently low, research and innovation on incentive designs to achieve more exclusive clean fuel use is sorely needed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The use and impacts of an ethanol cooking fuel promotion pilot in Dar es Salaam

  Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development · 2025-03-13 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Subhrendu K. Pattanayak

  Duke Institute for Health Innovation

  88 shared

• Dale Whittington

  University of Washington

  74 shared

• Faraz Usmani

  24 shared

• Xun Wu

  University of Hong Kong

  22 shared

• Luciane Lenz

  20 shared

• Joe Brown

  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  19 shared

• Jörg Peters

  RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research

  18 shared

• Tewodros Rango Godebo

  Tulane University

  18 shared

Education

• PhD, Environmental Sciences and Engineering

  UNC-Chapel Hill

  2009