Seed Award Winner Gorilla Conservation Wins the St Andrews Prize for the Environment 2020
Source: THE ST ANDREWS PRIZE
Celebrating its 22nd award in 2020, the Prize is an environmental initiative by the University of St Andrews in Scotland. The award recognises significant contributions to environmental issues and concerns with a focus on sustainability, conservation, biodiversity and community development. Read more
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SEED Award Winner Fang Thai Factory Featured on International Climate Initiative (IKI)
Source: International Climate Initiative (IKI)
SEED Low Carbon Award Winner 2019 Fang Thai Factory featured as a creative solution to address the environmental issues caused by Thailand's packaging industry in terms of deforestation, carbon dioxide emissions and waste management by International Climate Initiative. Read more
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Bottom-up Solutions to the Climate Emergency: Three Innovative, Eco-Inclusive Enterprises Take a Local Approach
Linde Wolters / Marlena Kiefl / Khawla Rammali Source: Next Billion
The threat of climate change exacerbates already existing inequalities, and increases the urgency of the need for resilient communities. But building this resilience presents a complex challenge: How can the world’s most marginalized communities effectively pursue growth, work toward the Sustainable Development Goals and overcome climate-related crises – while involving the rural households, women and youth who are most affected by climate change? Read more
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SEED Low Carbon Award Finalist SunnyCotton Featured on 'MGR Online'
Source: MGR online
Ms. Kesinee Jirawanidchakorn has created a sanitary napkin made from fabric, which can be washed and reused again. It enables females to save money and reduce the amount of waste that pollutes the environment. Read more
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SEED Low Carbon Award Winner Hustlenomics Featured on Sowetan Live
Karabo Ledwaba Source: Sowetan Live
Social entrepreneur Nhlanhla Ndlovu has fast become a star in the construction industry with his idea of replacing backyard shacks with decent housing. The 35-year-old founder of Hustlenomics recently won the SA leg of the Chivas Venture 2020 and will be representing the country in London and later Toronto in the international leg where $1m is up for grabs. Read more
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SEED Award Winner Lifepack Featured as an Eco-Friendly Biodegradable Packaging Solution to Plastic Pollution
Dan Edel Source: Intelligent Living
SEED Gender Equality Award Winner 2013 Lifepack, based in Colombia, has developed an amazing, 100% compostable product that can germinate plants within 8 days and biodegrade within 3 weeks. Each plant that germinates from a Lifepack will help to filter up to 1 ton of CO2. Read more
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SEED Award Winner 2019 Fang Thai featured on Deutsche Welle (DW)
Source: Deutsche Welle
Fang Thai's creative solution of using rice straw as a substitute for plastic food packaging in Thailand is featured by German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Read more
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SEED หนุนอาเซียน ผลิตสินค้ารักษ์สิ่งแวดล้อม-ใช้เทคโนโลยี | SEED supports ASEAN to produce environmentally friendly products
Published: 10 February 2020
SEED Symposium Bangkok 2020 on TNN TV Thailand features SEED supported enterprises in ASEAN Read more
SEED Low Carbon Award Finalist Ecozen Solutions Ranked as the 14th Fastest Growing Company in India.
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
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)
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 2020 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'
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
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
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 2020 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 2020 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 2020 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 2020 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
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
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 2019 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)
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 2019 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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