Sustainable Development Goals

Social and environmental entrepreneurship supports poverty eradication and sustainable economic development. Although significant progress towards UN Sustainable Development Goals has been made, further support is needed to enable these enterprises to more effectively and efficiently deliver their products and services for our joint achievement of SDGs by 2030.

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
SDGs:

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
SDGs:

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
SDGs:

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
SDGs:

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
SDGs:

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
SDGs:

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
SDGs:

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
SDGs:

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
SDGs:

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

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
SDGs:

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
SDGs:

Climate-Smart Impact Investment Fund: Extending capital to SMEs in emerging markets | Climate Finance, South Africa 2019

Published: 24 November 2019Authors: Maggie Sloan
The solution for an Impact Investment Fund for Climate-Smart Entrepreneurial Solutions brings together networks of active impact investors and potential future investors to deliver equity to climate-smart SMEs in their efforts to reach commercial scale. Read more
SDGs:

Green Lend: Inclusive credit risk assessment across value chains | Climate Finance, South Africa 2019

Published: 24 November 2019Authors: Maggie Sloan
This credit risk assessment mechanism aims to increase lending to climate-smart SMEs through risk scorecard development that incorporates alternative data across enterprise value chains. Read more
SDGs:

Malawi Waste Management Consortium: Building markets for waste innovation value chains | Policy, Malawi 2019

Published: 13 November 2019Authors: Alina Weiss, Maggie Sloan, Marlena Kiefl
The Malawi Waste Management Consortium supports the development of waste management markets and the alignment of policy around green and inclusive development approaches with entrepreneurial waste management solutions. The consortium aims to improve access to information on the current government policy for waste management and guidance for aspiring waste innovators by establishing a consortium of waste management experts and ecosystem actors and developing a digital platform and online marketplace for waste innovation. Read more
SDGs:

Off-grid renewable energy private-public partnership model: Improving market access and affordable technology financing | Policy, Malawi 2019

Published: 13 November 2019Authors: Alina Weiss, Maggie Sloan, Marlena Kiefl
his private-public partnership model furthers the electrification of (rural) Malawi by engaging technology suppliers, financiers and government around eco-inclusive enterprises offering off-grid renewable energy solutions and delivering capacity building for integrated distribution networks and targeted clean energy financing solutions. Read more
SDGs:

Agriculture Insurance and Climate-Related Risk Assessment: Stimulating Climate-Smart Agriculture Markets | Policy, Malawi 2019

Published: 13 November 2019Authors: Alina Weiss, Maggie Sloan, Marlena Kiefl
The policy instrument for stimulating markets for climate-smart agriculture value chains, combining agriculture insurance and climate-related risk assessment, will build decentralised capacity-building networks (supported by public and financial sector partners). This instrument aims to raise awareness and reduce the climate-related vulnerabilities of smallholder farmers and agribusinesses by developing and delivering risk management and adaptation solutions which are catered to these enterprises and the localised enterprise ecosystems in which they operate. Read more
SDGs:

Extending Business Development Services Beyond Metro Cities - Training the Trainers

Published: 01 November 2019Authors: Amar Munnolimath, Camilla Shearman
SEED’s two-pronged approach to supporting enterprises through direct support and ecosystem building activities is founded on the belief that enterprises rely on both internal and external success factors to grow their solutions. Read more
SDGs:

Looking Beyond the Known: Changing Mindsets through Design-Led Entrepreneurial Solutions

Published: 31 October 2019Authors: Maggie Sloan
Ms Kasturi, Founder of Daily Dump (SEED Low Carbon Award Winner 2018), was welcomed as keynote speaker during the BEYOND THE KNOWN: Practitioners’ Exchange to Discover New Ways to Promote Entrepreneurship & Support MSME Development from 15-16th October at the GIZ Representation in Berlin. Read more
SDGs:

Three policy recommendations for building robust climate change adaptation markets in South Africa

Published: 28 October 2019Authors: Camilla Shearman, Christine Meyer, Sonya Ong
With lessons drawn from an 8-month policy prototyping labs cycle in South Africa and over fifteen years of enterprise support, this policy brief presents three recommendations for policymakers to improve SMME access and contribution to climate change adaptation markets. These recommendations include (1) increasing availability of and access to market information, (2) creating support pipelines between public and private stakeholders, and (3) leveraging intermediaries as key contributors to the implementation and evaluation of market access policies. Read more
SDGs:

Meet the SEED Awards 2019 Winners & Finalists

Published: 24 October 2019
Tackling poverty and climate change, generating employment opportunities and contributing to economic development, this year’s 14 SEED Award winners were selected from over nine hundred applicants and were recognised for solutions to major local and global challenges. Read more
SDGs:

The SEED Awards 2019 highlight the contribution of green and social enterprises to advancing the Sustainable Development Goals

Published: 24 October 2019
Lilongwe, Malawi, Berlin, Germany, 24 October 2019 - Tackling poverty and climate change, generating employment opportunities and contributing to economic development, this year’s 14 SEED Award winners were selected from over 900 applicants and were recognised for solutions to major local and global challenges. Read more
SDGs:

Cooperative-to-Cooperative Platform: Expanding networks for community-led business development | Policy, Malawi 2019

Published: 21 October 2019Authors: Alina Weiss, Maggie Sloan, Marlena Kiefl
The cooperative-to-cooperative platform for climate-smart agriculture is a digital platform offering combined performance indexing, knowledge sharing, and matchmaking between cooperative unions and cooperatives across Malawi. The platform supports the further coordination of cooperatives and public sector initiatives in Malawi. Read more
SDGs:

Building a conducive environment for SME labour absorption | Policy, South Africa 2019

Published: 21 October 2019Authors: Camilla Shearman, Julia Haack
This policy instrument targets the strengthening of an enabling environment to promote SME growth and related labour absorption. This is to be achieved through increasing access to incentives for SMEs, as well as targeting size- and sector-based programmes to encourage growth. The thought group will act as an information platform for intermediaries and policy makers to unblock barriers facing SMEs when it comes to job creation, as well as to target programmes and investments based on sector. A focus on green jobs will help to define green sectors with high potential for job creation and encourage SME growth and job creation within these sectors . Read more
SDGs: