Company Brings Hope to African Entrepreneurs
A little over a year ago, Evergreen Sierra Leone (ESL) was born out of an idea to bring hope and opportunity to African entrepreneurs. The company has recently reached an important milestone by fulfilling their first order for 2,000 cook stoves. ESL founders, David Woolfolk and Mike Muhaibbi met while they were both working as Peace Corps Volunteers in Sierra Leone in 2006. They shared the same desire; to create a sustainable solution that would bring jobs and improved quality of life to people in Africa.
ESL focuses on three key areas: job creation, improved quality of life for people living in poverty, and sustainable development for communities where we operate. Emerging from this, the company creates a triple bottom line by improving livelihoods, benefiting the environment and being financially sustainable.
The first job created was for Robert Fadera, a local Sierra Leonean who had been making charcoal to sell at the Guma market. He was provided with a $3,000 loan to help him purchase equipment and trained in how to use it. He now employs others in his community to produce bricks using modern (and clean) equipment which they sell at the Guma market and makes enough money to support his family. In addition, he has purchased land where he plans to open a brick factory that will bring more jobs and opportunity to his town — one of many lives transformed through ESL's efforts.
Another key partner in our story is the Sierra Leonean government. They have provided ESL with land for a production facility and provided all of the necessary benefits — tax credits, subsidies and cooperatives — to local producers. The company has also partnered with the country's Ministry of Lands and Minerals to ensure that all benefits from ESL's operations are shared equitably among ESL, governments and local communities.
While our initial focus is on producing stoves, we hope to develop a mix of products over time. We are currently in discussions with government leaders and NGOs about the possibility of expanding into other areas such as solar panels and solar ovens designed for humanitarian organizations.
From these humble beginnings, we have expanded not only in terms of size but also in our goals and values. We now have a team of nearly 30 employees, and over a dozen partners — including many entrepreneurs that we've partnered with. Each one is integral to ESL's mission: to bring hope to Africa by creating jobs and opportunity through our products, and providing sustainable solutions for communities both near and far.
With the help of our customers, investors like the Rockefeller Foundation and generous donors like you, we have begun sharing the gift of ESL with the world. As you can imagine, it takes a village to help bring this kind of vision from idea to reality. We are grateful for all those who are helping us achieve these goals .
Read the whole story here: http://www.evergreensierraleone.com/news/one-year-of-hope/
Title: Businessman's Delight: Stoves for Africa
Author: Peter Quinn, Entrepreneur Magazine Columnist, Canada
Website: http://www.entrepreneurmag.ca/index.cfm?fa=articles.read&id=6445&cfId=91353#ixzz23PzwBc8k (Entrepreneur is the world's leading magazine for small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs. For the full text of this article, see the Entrepreneur Magazine website.)
Title: Sustainability and Innovation in Africa - The Business Case for Clean Production Technologies
(From NEPAD's Implementation Framework for Sustainable Development Goals in Africa, June 2008)
Innovation and sustainable development are strongly linked. High-tech innovation will not be able to do the trick alone. It needs to be coupled with well-defined social and economic policies that enable innovation to thrive and deliver results. The two are intrinsically linked as innovation will bring about change that is either desirable or necessary for sustainable development.
Let's not forget that innovation is the result of an idea (or a change in the situation) and the key question is what kind of impact these changes will have on people's lives. It is evident that there are many ways of achieving better results than those we have now, by improving existing production technologies or by not using them at all. And it is clear that also there will be costs and benefits involved, as everything else in life.
Sustainable development and innovation are two sides of the same coin, complementary and mutually reinforcing. Innovation will bring about change that is necessary for sustainable development. And with these changes comes new opportunities for economic growth, new employment and social development.
(From NEPAD's Implementation Framework for Sustainable Development Goals in Africa, June 2008)
Innovation and sustainable development are strongly linked. High-tech innovation will not be able to do the trick alone. It needs to be coupled with well-defined social and economic policies that enable innovation to thrive and deliver results. The two are intrinsically linked as innovation will bring about change that is either desirable or necessary for sustainable development.
Let's not forget that innovation is the result of an idea (or a change in the situation) and the key question is what kind of impact these changes will have on people's lives. It is evident that there are many ways of achieving better results than those we have now, by improving existing production technologies or by not using them at all. And it is clear that also there will be costs and benefits involved, as everything else in life.
Sustainable development and innovation are two sides of the same coin, complementary and mutually reinforcing. Innovation will bring about change that is necessary for sustainable development. And with these changes comes new opportunities for economic growth, new employment and social development.
A sustainable approach to production technologies involves three key factors: innovation, sustainability and access. According to a report from the UNDP, innovation "means taking out of the box and developing new technology for a product or process that can improve efficiency and productivity". Sustainability is all about how you go about using this new technology so as to achieve a sustainable development outcome. And access refers to the availability of financing systems along with the social and cultural aspects of a community that affect decisions regarding production technologies.
We will examine each of these issues in this article, while looking at important examples that show how they actually function in practice. We will be looking at how business people can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals in Africa.
Fortunately, there is already an established framework for many production technologies, whether they are industrial or agricultural. This framework provides a way of defining what characteristics should be taken into consideration when evaluating a production technology from an economic, social and environmental perspective. It also provides a tool for evaluating the technologies and their eventual adoption by businesses and other entities operating in the various sectors that use these production technologies.
Conclusion
We might have a good idea of what we are looking for and how we should go about finding it, but would such an approach even work in reality? Simply put, first you need to ask yourself two questions: 1. Is it possible for us to achieve this goal? 2. Would it be cost-effective? These are two important questions that need to be answered within one's business plan before investing in new technologies and their implementation within a given production process.
Source: The article was originally published on Entrepreneur Magazine's website on 1 August 2010. It is also available in full text here (article available as PDF): http://www.entrepreneurmag.ca/index.cfm?fa=articles.