CAT Africa

Business case

Impact on increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

Societal Services

Ensure renewable, reusable, non-toxic resources are utilised as materials and energy in an efficient way

Prioritise regenerative resources

Work together throughout the supply chain, internally within organisations and with the public sector and communities to increase transparency and create joint value

Team up to create joint value

Engage with the local community where facilities or offices are located

Community collaboration

Raise awareness and run information campaigns about  strategies for and impacts of the circular economy in different contexts.

Communication and awareness

Regenerate strategies phase out hazardous or toxic materials and processes and substitute them with regenerative biomass resources. A circular economy aims to mimic natural cycles—by shifting to more regenerative farming practices, for example—while also maximising the share of circular biomass that enters the economy. Regeneration can happen both at the systems level (by designing regenerative processes) as well as at the product level (by switching synthetic to organic fertilisers, for example).

Regenerate

Impacts

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Industries

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The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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In Uganda, most families use kerosene to light their homes at night, exposing children and their families to adverse health risks and putting unsustainable pressure on the environment.(Image Source: SolarAid)
In a village, a boy and his homework sit swallowed in darkness. Beside him, a kerosene lamp burns dimly. Inside of him, a desire to learn burns brightly.
For two hours, he huddles next to the flame, breathing in knowledge and fumes, until he finally falls asleep. When he wakes in the morning, he rubs his eyes—not because he is sleepy but because they itch and ache. As he gets up to greet his family, a cough escapes his lips.
In the kitchen, his mother is cooking breakfast. She is burning fuelwood and shrouded in a cloud of smoke. Mirroring her son, she rubs her eyes but carries on. It’s almost time for school.
The scene repeats itself every day.
The situation just described is not an uncommon one in Uganda, where 90% of households use firewood and charcoal for cooking, and kerosene is almost always used for lighting. These unclean energy sources in the home have found Uganda on the list of countries worst affected by indoor air pollution globally, and the health implications are enormous. The World Bank estimates that breathing kerosene fumes is the equivalent of smoking two packets of cigarettes a day, and in developing countries like Uganda where women spend an average of 7 hours per day preparing meals with firewood and a disproportionate amount of time at home with kerosene, a shocking two-thirds of adult females with lung cancer are non-smokers. From other respiratory infections like tuberculosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to cataracts, cardiovascular complications, low birth weight, and mortality in both adults and children, the consequences of such energy choices cannot be ignored.
Beyond human health, however, Uganda’s struggle for clean energy is affecting the health of its natural resources and economy, as unsustainable fuelwood and charcoal use, alongside inefficient cooking practices, are contributing to a reduction in forest cover at a rate of 100,000 hectares annually. This environmental degradation has major implications for Uganda, as it fuels climate change, alters the hydrologic cycle, and ultimately puts at risk the 90% of the population that depends upon the soils and rains for their livelihoods in agriculture.
According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 90% of households in Uganda use firewood and charcoal for cooking. Burning firewood carries with it detrimental health and environmental consequences. (Image Source: Potential Energy)
Building Tomorrow Fellows Program alumni Herbert Murungi and Daphine Oyera know the implications of such unsustainable and unsafe energy consumption well, and that is why they officially launched and registered their social enterprise, the Rural Environmental Sustainability Initiative (RESI), in August 2017 to tackle these issues head-on. Using a bottom-up approach emphasizing grassroots sensitization about climate change and environmental degradation, the Fellows are pushing RESI to become a leading innovator and implementer of sustainable economic, social, and environmental practices in the rural communities of Uganda.
“I think everyone has a role to play in fighting climate change,” Herbert explains. “It’s not only a policy issue. We have to change our habits. And that’s where we have a great role to play, by educating people, planting trees, and shifting from unclean to clean energy.”
For RESI, the education component is central to achieving its mission of improving the quality of life in rural communities. Without raising awareness about climate change and its relationship to environmental degradation, the Fellows do not think there can be an informed decision-making process and planning, whether at the local or policy levels.
“Climate change and environmental destruction are mindset issues,” Herbert says. “Because people still wonder if they cut down a tree, does it have an impact on the environment?” That is why community sensitization was and continues to be the first point of intervention for RESI. In the past four months, over 100 people in the village of Kamusenene, home of the Building Tomorrow Primary School of Kamusenene, have already been trained in topics to promote environmental literacy. The goal is to help communities understand how people relate to each other and natural systems, and to discuss how they might do so sustainably.
The Fellows launched RESI in August 2017 to improve the quality of life in rural communities through capacity building and deployment of innovative technologies to cause social, economic and environmental impact.
The community sensitization meetings also serve as a forum to discuss biogas as a viable energy solution at the local level, another major component of RESI’s vision. Biogas, or gas generated through the biodigestion of organic materials, is a renewable and clean source of energy that does not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions as the process does not require combustion. Instead, by decomposing waste products commonly found at the farm level, such as animal manure, gas is created and captured to generate electricity. As an added advantage, a biproduct of the biogas generation process is enriched organic materials, which can supplement or even replace chemical fertilizers. “That waste is enough to boost organic farming,” Herbert explains.
To move RESI’s vision of rural communities powered by biogas forward, the RESI team recently hosted the CEO of SP Renewable Energy Resource Pvt. Ltd. (SPRE), a leading biogas company in India, who assisted in carrying out trainings on biogas technologies to employ in rural communities. Thanks to these efforts, plans are underway to provide biogas to 20 households in the Kamusenene and Kyenshama villages. RESI has also partnered with local biogas enterprises like Biogas Solutions Uganda Limited (BSUL) to advance its objectives through capacity building to rural communities and its own team.
Herbert plants a tree with the head boy of the BT Primary School of Kamusenene. Tree planting to mitigate climate change and restore lost forest ecosystems is one of RESI’s activities toward building sustainable rural communities.
While it has seen these successes, however, Daphine and Herbert explain that funding continues to be a challenge in taking the next steps for RESI. They want to build two demonstration plants to spread knowledge about this technology to Ugandans, for example, but are struggling to generate capital to do so. Nonetheless, they remain committed to advancing the information and innovations to transform Uganda’s rural energy sector and are being supported in growing their enterprise through 2018 Africa Changemakers Fellowship and SWITCH Africa Green (SAG) SEED project.
“In 5 years to come,” Herbert says, “we look at RESI being one of the biggest social enterprises impacting the rural people. If we can change mindsets, we open up a door for people to take on biogas, adopt organic farming, and plant more trees. We want to change that because our children deserve better.” Through our Fellows Program, Building Tomorrow supports the growth and development of changemakers and entrepreneurs looking to disrupt the status quo. To find out more about our Fellows Program and its initiatives, click here.  

http://www.resi-ecoinclusive.org/An environmental friendly social enterprise providing clean energy in the last mile and promoting environment and climate literacy.We are a hybrid social enterprise that works with underserved rural people to improve their lives by promoting clean technologies in energy, water and sustainable food production as well as environmental sustainability.

Uganda

SWITCH Africa Green

Africa Changemakers Fellowship

Rural Environmental Sustainability Initiative

Rural Environmental Sustainability Initiative (RESI) is a nonprofit organization that works with underserved rural people to improve their lives by promoting clean technologies in energy, water, and sustainable food production as well as environmental sustainability and climate literacy. They are being supported in growing their enterprise through the 2018 Africa Changemakers Fellowship and SWITCH Africa Green, pushing RESI to become a leading innovator and implementer of sustainable economic, social, and environmental practices in the rural communities of Uganda.

Rural Environmental Sustainability Initiative in Uganda

Policy case

Impact on the quantity or quality of jobs, and shifts in the labour market

Jobs

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

Efficiency gains on operations or transactions either through cultural or technological shifts

Productivity

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Reduced use and withdrawal of water and rate of recycling and reuse of water

Save Water (SDG6)

Reduced use of fossil fuel energy sources and/or increased use of renewable energy

Reduce Energy Consumption

Producing and gathering crop and animal products from land and water through farming, hunting, and fishing

Agriculture

Enacting measures that optimise material use such as 3D printing, etc.

Material efficiency

Enacting measures that optimise water use

Water efficiency

Enacting measures that optimise energy use

Energy efficiency

Designing products so they use as little materials, water, energy, etc. as possible during use

Design for resource efficiency

Engaging in discussions with industry stakeholders to share circular economy best practices and push the industry towards greater circularity

Guidance, dialogue with industry stakeholders

Engaging in discussions with government bodies and policymakers to push for regulations that support the circular economy

Advocacy for circular economy policy

Conduct research

A framework of policy instruments that enabled and encourage the transition to the circular economy

Policy Instruments

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A framework of policy instruments that enable and stimulate the transition to the circular economy

Kenya

One of SWITCH Africa Green's project in Kenya is focused around the local agriculture sector and aims to increase Kenyan businesses' capacity to adopt sustainable practices and campaign for a greener business climate by introducing resource-efficient and environmentally friendly green economy initiatives. The project has been successful in reducing the usage of energy and water along with improving waste management for the participating enterprises. The initiative has also contributed to generating more revenue for the these businesses next to creating new job opportunities.

SWITCH Africa Green project largely increases resource efficiency in the Kenyan agricultural sector

Providing recreational and cultural services, including hotels, resorts, casinos, sport and fitness centers, stadiums, golf courses and amusement parks, restaurants, bars, pubs, fast-food or take-out facilities, as well as libraries and museums

Hospitality and Tourism

Industry peers to industry peer collaboration to create joint value and identify synergies

Industry collaboration

Engage with the government on circular policies and programmes

Government collaboration

Facilitate discussions and meetings between internal team members to identify circular opportunities

Dialogue with internal stakeholders

   
 

  South Africa’s buildings account for 40% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. 
South Africa’s buildings account for 40% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. But the City of Johannesburg’s new draft green buildings policy aims to change that. The policy is driving the change to a more sustainable built environment through, for example, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to achieve low to net zero carbon for all new buildings  by 2030.  “Buildings have a relatively long lifespan of 40 to 120 years, and the building stock in cities is growing rapidly. Significant opportunities exist for decreasing emissions from buildings through reducing energy demand and then supplying remaining energy demand with energy generated from renewable energy sources, such as rooftop solar panels,” says the report. Although retrofitting buildings with new technologies, such as efficient lighting, can help to reduce energy demand, the actual design of a building can reduce the number of energy services required.  The draft policy details how residential development is the biggest contributor to Johannesburg’s carbon emissions and to the annual increase in carbon emissions. Buildings consume energy and water and are also waste producers. They are essential to tackling service-delivery problems if developed in a way that minimises resource consumption. Buildings whose water and power use do not comply with the regulations will be subject to fines and penalties. Liana Strydom, the  director of regional planning at the City of Johannesburg, said there is urgency in future-proofing the city’s buildings.   The policy had been developed in a partnership between Sustainable Energy Africa and Cape Town, Jo’burg, eThekwini and Tshwane. The cities signed the 2018 global net-zero carbon buildings declaration as part of a C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group South Africa Buildings Programme.  eThekwini recently had its draft green building policy approved by the council for public comment. 
 
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Tourism is a very important sector in Uganda, and as the industry is experiencing a rapid growth over the years, potential threats of environmental degradation, larger waste levels and emissions also rise. To address the lack of expertise and skills for the development of sustainable and resource efficient operations, SWITCH Africa Green has initiated a project to train and advise industry stakeholders. Their results show that with better assistance and knowledge, the tourism industry can develop more sustainably.