Nairobi, 17th November 2021 - GrowthAfrica, Africa’s leading business accelerator, kicks off a circular economy focused accelerator programme aimed at fostering critical alignments towards Circular Economy principles in business strategies for environmentally safe practices in entrepreneurship. The accelator programme is supported by DOEN Foundation, Netherlands largest impact investor in sustainable and social startups.
Driven by a shared vision to increase the rate of success for impact ventures, GrowthAfrica and DOEN Foundation have partnered to enable business success in Africa through a Circular Economy accelerator. The programme is designed to support growth-stage ventures to build sustainable businesses by incorporating circular economy principles into their value chains.
The effects of climate change are adversely felt globally and is increasingly becoming Africa’s greatest challenge, whose effects can be mitigated by incorporating circularity models in solution-based cross-sector business systems. The infusion of Circular Economy principles in businesses encourages the production and use of resources effectively through reuse and regeneration, resulting in reduced waste, green house emissions and pollution in general. Circularity gives the necessary tools to support climate mitigation in reversing effects of climate change and biodiversity loss while addressing important business needs.
Through the accelerator programme, businesses will infuse circular economy models to improve resource performance and enhance the solutions they provide to fight the volatility that climate change might bring to the continent.
The accelerator programme targets innovative ventures across Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia who are working actively to reduce the carbon footprint through their business processes. The accelerator has selected 28 businesses who will be supported via technical capacity building, coaching and mentorship from circular economy experts and will have the opportunity to receive a repayable impact fund of USD 10,000 to embed the circluar principles in their business models.
The programme is working towards a world where businesses have designed and implemented effective steps towards incorporating sustainable strategies within their existing businesses and successfully transitioned from traditional to circular business models for a net-zero Africa.
