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Redefining the Corporate Value Chain: How Social Procurement Can Benefit Both Corporations and Social Businesses
The challenges of scale and the need for greater corporate involvement are perennial topics of discussion in the social business sector. But according to Lucie Durand and Daniel Nowack at Yunus Social Business, both of these challenges can be addressed through social procurement – the practice of integrating social businesses into corporate value chains. They discuss how this strategy can harness corporations' buying power to scale social enterprises, and share insights from a how-to guide for industry practitioners interested in social procurement.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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The Rise of Circular Fashion Brings Opportunity to Design a Fashion System That Works for All
The significant momentum behind circularity begs the question for both industry and policymakers: How can we leverage this transformation to reimagine and rebuild the global fashion system so that it works for all?
- Categories
- WASH
- Region
- Global
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Analysis: Secondhand Fashion: Is It Really Good for Africa?
Used or surplus clothing from Western countries often ends up in Africa. Whether that’s good remains open to question.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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From Problem to Profit: Rewiring the E-Waste Value Chain in Africa
Africa is home to bountiful reserves of metals and minerals, but these resources have not unleashed widespread economic growth. However, as Anne Cathrine Garde and Blessing Layee-Maima Caine at the BESTSELLER Foundation explain, an “urban mine” is quietly growing on the continent, in the form of discarded electronic devices loaded with precious metals. They discuss how trailblazing trash entrepreneurs are tapping the riches sitting in Africa's overflowing landfills, and turning this problem into profit by rewiring the broken e-waste value chain.
- Categories
- Technology, WASH
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Analysis: The Case of the Underperforming Circular Economy
Progress resides through the decidedly less-glamorous earthbound work of business process improvements, negotiations among buyers and sellers, and internal business teams needing to resolve highly complex technical issues. These efforts are essential to building more empowering business cultures through intra-organizational and cross-value-chain networks.
- Categories
- Uncategorized
- Region
- Global
- Tags
- circular economy, scale
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The Japan International Cooperation Agency Invests $2.5 Million In Fly-based Sanitation Startup in Nairobi
The Japan International Cooperation Agency has invested $2.5 million in a U.S. startup in Nairobi that uses flies to process biowaste in an initiative to help address the city's growing sanitation needs.
- Categories
- Environment
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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US Developer Lands $1.75 Million Deal for Nigerian Mini-Grids
Former start-up Husk, which originally based its business on renewables powered by rice industry waste products, has agreed to develop seven solar-plus-storage mini-grids across rural communities in Nasarawa state.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Curbing Deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Why Woodfuel Alternatives Are a Key Sustainable Solution
Deforestation is rampant in sub-Saharan Africa – the only region where the pace of forest loss has increased in each of the last three decades. According to Ian Otula and Aaron Pattillo of Vuma Biofuels and Wassa N’Gandjo Cisse of the BESTSELLER Foundation, the root cause of this crisis is the fact that woodfuels provide over 80% of the region's energy, and there's an alarming imbalance between supply and demand. They explore how woodfuel substitutes can offer a solution to this issue – and how Vuma Biofuels is leveraging these sustainable fuel sources to address a key driver of deforestation in Kenya: the tea industry.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
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