Meet Eco-Inclusive Enterprises

Innovating business models for socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable products and services.

SEED Low Carbon Award Finalist Ecozen Solutions Ranked as the 14th Fastest Growing Company in India.

Authors: Source: Economic Times
In any great story, a few memorable characters always stand out, and so it is too with India. The Economic Times and Statista are on the cusp of launching the inaugural edition of India’s Growth Champions 2020, an ambitious initiative that aims to highlight true accelerators of the Indian economy. Read more
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SEED India Hub Launch at the World Sustainable Development Summit 2020

Authors: TERI Source: TERI
Rainer Agster, Director of Operations at SEED, was present during WSDS 2020 to launch the SEED India hub and to introduce two eco-inclusive enterprises (Aikya Organics & Daily Dump) that are developing solutions for the challenges of climate change. Read more
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SEED Award Winner Green the Map featured on Global Ideas (DW)

Authors: Global Ideas Source: Deutsche Welle
SEED Award Winner 2016 Green the Map featured as a creative solution to tackle India's massive waste management problem by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Read more
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SOLFIN: Affordable Lease-to-Own Financing for Solar System | Climate Finance, Ghana 2019

Published: 27 January 2020Authors: Kathrin Kirsch, Marlena Kiefl
SOLFIN is a climate finance product that targets SMEs in the solar energy sector and supports them to provide affordable solar systems through enabling a lease-to-own financing model. Thereby, SOLFIN addresses the lack of high upfront investments for solar technologies by enabling solar technology providers to offer solar systems complemented by the necessary finance product. In this way, reasonable interest rates and longer tenors can be offered to SMEs, end-users and households. Read more
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SEED Low Carbon Award 2019 finalist Stonesoup featured on 'the better India'

Authors: Charu Chowdhary Source: The better India
SEED Low Carbon Award 2019 finalist Stonesoup featured on 'the better India' to share their knowledge on terrace gardening. Stonesoupe provides home composting kits and other eco-friendly products that enable people to reduce their household waste and grow their own food. Read more
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SEED Symposium Bangkok 2020

Published: 23 January 2020
The SEED Symposium Bangkok 2020 brought together 180+ enterprises, financial institutions, policy-makers, donors, business development service providers and others to develop innovative approaches and partnerships that promote social and environmental entrepreneurship in sustainable development and green economy agendas. Read more
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Beyond impact: Eco-inclusive enterprises advancing the SDGs

Published: 17 January 2020
Small and growing enterprises are key drivers of development and employment. They account for 50% of the jobs globally, and contribute well over 35% towards the GDP of emerging economies. SEED particularly supports eco-inclusive enterprises; small, micro and medium-sized enterprises operating at the community level. They offer innovative solutions to common social and environmental issues, but also strengthen local economies. But what exactly is their impact? Can we quantify it, and how do we stimulate it?

Have a look at our 2020 SEED Impact Snapshot, a snapshot of the impact of Asia an Africa based eco-inclusive enterprises on the SDGs. Read more
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Meet Mwinilunga District’s beekeeping ambassador

Authors: Source: Mining for Zambia
Sustainable beekeeping will help reduce poverty and protect forests for future generations, says Davies Ilunga Read more
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Climate Finance Knowledge Hub: Sharing Technical Know-How on the Assessment, Appraisal & Financing of Climate-Smart Enterprise | Climate Finance, Ghana 2019

Published: 14 January 2020Authors: Kathrin Kirsch, Marlena Kiefl
The Climate Finance Knowledge Hub aims to address the knowledge gap of FIs on climate-smart SMEs by sharing technical know-how on the assessment, appraisal and financing of this target group. It enables FIs to identify and appraise climate-smart value chains to provide targeted financing for SMEs by providing the necessary knowledge, collecting relevant data and establishing a framework for the assessment of climate-smart enterprises and risk-indexing. The Hub will include enterprises throughout the platform and training to also increase their know-how on climate finance. Read more
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Farmer Friendly Finance: Unlocking Financing for Climate-Smart Agriculture Through a Community-Based Youth Farming Approach | Climate Finance, Ghana 2019

Published: 14 January 2020Authors: Marlena Kiefl
Farmer Friendly Finance (FFF) offers climate finance solutions to farmers, and especially young graduates, who want to set up a farming business as aspiring farmerpreneurs in the context of climate-smart agriculture. FFF bundles services to de-risk farmerpreneurs, offers access to finance and cooperates with rural communities to provide land to farmerpreneurs with the aim to address the challenge of climate change and youth migration which Ghana’s agriculture sector is facing. Read more
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Pay2Pay: Mobile-Enabled Solution for Working Capital Pre-Financing for Smallholder Farmers | Climate Finance, Ghana 2019

Published: 14 January 2020Authors: Kathrin Kirsch, Marlena Kiefl
Pay2Pay offers a new way of obtaining financing and access to markets to smallholder farmers and small and growing agribusinesses. It is a platform payment system that serves as an intermediary, bringing together financial institutions, smallholder farmers and business development services such as climate-technology service providers. The payment system is set up as a platform with the use of a mobile phone application reaching out to rural areas. Earmarking of pay-outs is used to ensure the proper utilization of money. Read more
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Microinsurance Without Borders Effective Delivery of Microinsurance for SMEs in the Agricultural Sector | Climate Finance, Ghana 2019

Published: 14 January 2020Authors: Kathrin Kirsch, Marlena Kiefl
Microinsurance without Borders aims to strengthen the resilience of smallholder farmers towards external shocks, focusing on value chains that are strongly affected by climate change. It comprises a comprehensive solution that fits the needs of smallholder farmers by combining a mobile-enabled insurance with technical assistance for climate-resilient agriculture, as well as financial literacy training for smallholder farmers to foster a financially inclusive and climate-resilient agricultural sector in Ghana and fill the insurance gap for smallholder farmers Read more
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SEED Low Carbon Award Finalist Siyabuddy Recycling and Waste Management Featured on Reuters

Authors: Nellie Peyton Source: Reuters
SiyaBuddy is featured as an enterprise that is helping to tackle problems from illiteracy to pollution across Africa by Reuters. SiyaBuddy is a recycling and waste management company in South Africa that aims to create jobs while helping the environment. The start-up buys waste from local collectors, mostly women, and sells it to recycling companies. Read more
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2019 Year in Review: Tusafishe feature

Authors: NTV Uganda Source: NTV Uganda
Low Carbon 2019 Award winner Tusafishe featured in NTV Uganda's 2019 Year in Review as an example to help transform communities. Read more
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Modest in Size, Potentially Huge in Impact: Leveraging Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) for Climate Action

Published: 23 December 2019Authors: Jonas Restle-Steinert, Kathrin Kirsch, Linde Wolters, Maggie Sloan, Rainer Agster, Tobias Hausotter
Despite the goals put forward in the Paris Agreement and commitments by countries in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is rising (WMO 2019). It is, therefore, more important than ever for countries to step up their ambition and NDC commitments in 2020. The COP25 climate negotiations will pave the way for the next year and the NDC update processes. These open up the opportunity to acknowledge a modest yet potentially impactful group of players for ambitious climate action: small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Read more
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Low Carbon Award Winner Hustlenomics featured on Global Ideas (DW)

Authors: Global Ideas Source: Deutsche Welle
SEED Low Carbon Award Winner 2019 Hustlenomics featured as an inspirational best practice climate and biodiversity protection project in South Africa by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Read more
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Bringing SME voices into policy solution development through our Practitioner Labs for Policy Prototyping

Published: 16 December 2019Authors: Camilla Shearman
In late October, seven policy practitioners took to the stage during the SEED Practitioner Labs for Policy Prototyping scale-up labs in South Africa and Malawi. The practitioners shared their ideas of policy solutions to leverage the potential of eco-inclusive enterprises in driving the transition to green and inclusive economies. Read more
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SEED Malawi National Dialogue Forum 2019

Published: 12 December 2019
Brought together around 130+ entrepreneurs, policymakers, financial institutions, business development service providers and others to celebrate the journeys of eco-inclusive enterprises and collaboratively mobilise support for building the capacities of socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable entrepreneurship in Southern Africa. Read more
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SEED at the COP25 in Madrid

Published: 11 December 2019
SEED’s Executive Director Dr. Lewis Akenji was present in Madrid and participated in multiple events to share how SEED supports climate-smart small and medium sized enterprises to develop innovative solutions to major climate finance challenges. As well as the innovative approaches of the SEED Low Carbon Award Winners & Finalists to reduce plastic waste.  Read more

Proplanet SEED Low Carbon Award 2014 Winner featured on El Espectador (SP)

Authors: www.elespectador.com Source: El Espectador
The recycled material allows the manufacture of school and urban furniture, construction materials, sheets for automotive application, vertical gardens, matera, ecological points. Read more
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SEED Practitioner Labs 2019

Published: 25 November 2019Authors: Alina Weiss, Camilla Shearman, Julia Haack, Kathrin Kirsch, Maggie Sloan, Marlena Kiefl
This brochure gives an overview of the 16 climate finance solutions and policy instruments developed during the 2019 SEED Practitioner Labs Climate Finance and Policy Prototyping in Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa.

This year, the labs brought together over 320 policy makers, financial institutions, civil society, research organisations, intermediaries and eco-inclusive enterprises to co-create solutions to financial and policy barriers facing eco-inclusive enterprises as they look to start and scale their ideas. Read more
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Ghana’s Innovation and Startup Culture Thriving

Authors: Stacey Knott Source: Voice of America
Nelson Boateng's enterprise Nelplast (SEED Winner 2019) that creates bricks from recycled plastic and sand is featured in VOA as an innovative startup in Ghana. Read more
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Platform for climate-resilient SME financing: Institutionalising access to climate finance | Climate Finance, South Africa 2019

Published: 24 November 2019Authors: Julia Haack, Maggie Sloan
The platform will build on existing infrastructure to support investors and SMMEs by building a common understanding of the climate resilience market, facilitating investment-readiness and deal flow matchmaking processes, while building SMMEs’ capacity through a customised “capacity building journey”. Read more
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Equity plug for energy efficiency financing: Direct lending model for SMEs | Climate Finance, South Africa 2019

Published: 24 November 2019Authors: Maggie Sloan
This model for energy efficiency financing for SMEs “plugs the gap” with equity by generating a paradigm shift in commercial banks through market, technology and supplier engagement and systematic technical assistance. Read more
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