Twenty African eco-enterprises win SEED Awards for sustainable entrepreneurship

From off-grid mobile solar power stations to roads built with recycled plastic – business models full of new ideas were at the heart of the Seed Awards 2016! The winners were honoured at the SEED Africa Symposium, a multi-stakeholder forum organised by adelphi and held annually.

At the 2016 SEED Africa Symposium in Nairobi, Kenya, held on 28th September 2016, twenty innovative enterprises from Africa were honoured with SEED Awards. SEED is a global partnership for promoting social and environmental enterprises. adelphi is its project sponsor. Every year, the awards honour businesses that contribute to the attainment of the United Nationals Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development) via their positive impacts on society and environment.

More than 500 businesses from eight African countries submitted applications for this year’s SEED Awards. The honourees include businesses producing footwear from upcycled tires and fabric waste, reviving and promoting a neglected but nutritious Ghanaian indigenous crop, and providing information to farmers via mobile technology.

Erik Solheim, Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), described the 2016 honourees as “exceptional examples of entrepreneurial talent that not only support green growth goals, but inspire other individuals and businesses to contribute as well.” UNEP is one of the founding organisations of SEED.

SEED presents new study on replicating business models

The SEED Africa Symposium brought together over 450 participants from business, academia, government, and civil society to join in discussions on the topic “From Innovation to Imitation – Replicating Successful Business Models for Green Growth and Sustainable Development”. A starting point for the discussions was “Replicating Eco-Inclusive Business Models”, a study by SEED. It portrays how various actors could support the replication of environmentally and socially responsible business models.

“In smaller economies, it will be better to replicate than to innovate… We seem to be moving beyond the hype of innovation to the rapid spread of executable solutions”, said Lesley Donna Williams of Impact Hub, a network based in Johannesburg (South Africa) that promotes socially responsible businesses, at the opening panel discussion in Nairobi.

As the organiser of the SEED Africa Symposium, adelphi provided international and local actors the opportunity to share perspectives and best practice examples, jointly develop new ideas, and to make new contacts.