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What you can do as an individual to practice circularity this season. (Series Part 2)

As an individual there are many things that you can do to promote circularity this holiday season. Firstly, when buying gifts, use the principles of sufficiency and efficiency. When are gifts really needed? Do I really need a new device or new clothes? And if they are needed, how can I limit how they are packaged and assure that packaging is recycled? From an efficiency perspective, think about whether there are alternative products on the market that have diverted waste from landfills and are produced by local entrepreneurs. You can do this by looking at our Circular Products Catalogue, where there are fantastic products and services...

What is Circularity?(Series Part 1)

  “Circularity” refers to activities which keep resources in use for as long as possible. Two key ideas that underpin the concept of “circularity” are: Sufficiency Can I make do with what I have? Do I really need new materials or products? Sufficiency is the opposite of consumerism because it teaches us to value what we already have rather than to search satisfaction through material objects. Efficiency Can I do things in a way that is cheaper, faster and consumes less resources? Efficiency in circularity emphasises that it is possible to produce goods and services using less raw materials across the lifecycle of a product, which is good for...

International Youth Day: The Role of Young People in The Promotion of Circular Economy in Africa

Bilikiss Adebiyi Abiola, a young ecopreneur founded her waste recycling and management startup, Wecycler in 2012. A move that was full of uncertainty for the young Nigerian who had only recently graduated from Vanderbilt University, where she obtained her Master's degree. Less than a decade later, this interesting social enterprise has gone ahead to recycle over 12,000 tons of waste while facilitating social change and development.  With the youth accounting for 63 percent of Africa’s population, and 60 percent of this figure unemployed, Bilikiss is one of 241 million people aged 15 to 29 living in Africa, working to make meaning of the challenges faced...

Osarode Odemwingie, Rodelenz Industries: Highlights from my time in the LOOPLab Incubation Programme

The LOOPLab Incubation programme has proven to be the most brain-bursting experience, I have encountered!!! Here are my memorable takeaways, in no particular order. The session with Professor Joseph Pistrui where he spoke about "Market, Technology, and Society". The fact that a product exists does not necessarily mean that a particular community/society will purchase it. It could be taboo in that community. Therefore, if the entrepreneur gets all three correct, they may execute successfully.  Dr. Anderson's lecture where we discussed the perception of brands. Every font type, color, and logo has a deeper meaning. These things are not done haphazardly, the buzzwords for the biggest firms around...

Waste Value Chain Tour: LoopLab is Creating a Circular Economy Revolution One Innovation at a Time.

The smiles and ecstatic laughter, the chatting and the catching up at the LoopLab’s  Waste Value Chain Tour, amid the cheering rhythmic and energetic waves of the ocean at Elegushi beach should not be mistaken as an indication of a perfect world, it's a call for help, a call for more to be done. This is against the backdrop of the fact that 8 million tons of plastic enter our oceans every year. To think that the Lagos lagoon is sourly polluted that even the marine life we depend on for food is being impacted. This is the reason the Waste Value Chain Tour event organised...

The Coca-Cola Foundation Awards Grant to GBF to Launch Empowering Collector Initiative (ECI) To Create Sustainable and Viable Plastic Waste Ecosystem in Nigeria.

The Coca-Cola Foundation has awarded a grant to Growing Business Foundation (GBF) targeted at strengthening the plastic waste management value chain through its Empowering Collector Initiative, a program designed to improve the largely informal plastic waste collection, aggregation and recycling process in Nigeria. The program which will run for about 24 months will seek to enhance environmental resilience by preventing the flow of plastic waste, especially PET, to water ways and landfills through an aggressive and organized system that targets about 25,000 MT of waste. The ultimate objective of the program is to support and accelerate the growing opportunity spectrum of bottle-to-bottle recycling value chain...

LOOPLab Incubation Programme: One Month Done, Five Months to go

One month ago, the Circular Lagos Challenge 2022 was completed, handing over the baton and mandate - to equip the Innovators with the necessary tools and knowledge to successfully manage and acquire funding for their ideas, to the LOOPLab Incubation Programme. LOOPLab Incubation Programme has successfully completed the first month of her six months journey with the innovators. Here’s what Babatunde Adebayo of Eco Circular Solutions Provider Ltd, one of the LOOPLab Innovators, has to say about the past one month in the LOOPLab Incubation Programme: “The first month of LOOPLab innovation program has been enlightening, eye opening and full of insight for the future. In a...

CE Business Models: LOOPLab Innovators taught to identify opportunities across the Circular Economy Value Chain.

The LOOPLab Incubation Program continues in full swing. Here are some highlights from the “CE Business Model” Taught Programme for LOOPLab. The physical session was handled by Dr Natalie Beinisch, the Executive Director of Circular Economy Innovation Partnership (CEIP) and covered five operating models of businesses in the circular economy ecosystem:   Picture Caption: LOOPLab Innovator, Taiwo Adewole of WasteXchange with Dr Natalie Beinisch, Executive Director CEIP In attendance were: Tunbosun Alake, SA to the Lagos State Governor on Innovation and Technology; Dr Natalie Beinisch, Executive Director, CEIP; Uchechi Chukwuma and Adeleke Ademo representing the faculty team from GOPA/GiZ; the 7 LOOPLab innovators/representatives; the CEIP, CEIBS and NCIC...

Announcing the 2022 Circular Lagos Challenge Winners

CEIP, GIZ, NCIC, and Challenge Owners Companies award innovators addressing challenges surrounding the development of sustainable circular businesses.   Innovators are responding to the challenges that come with creating a sustainable and efficient circular ecosystem with solutions that make designing out waste a priority. The Circular Lagos Challenge 2022 asked individuals and groups from within and outside Lagos to proffer innovative solutions to six challenge questions provided by a number of organizations serving as challenge owners companies.   Winners of the Circular Lagos Challenge with Challenge Judges   The Circular Lagos Project was initiated by Lagos State in collaboration with the Circular Economy Innovation Partnership in December 2020 and the support...

Accounting for Circular Economy: Towards a Revolution?

I am not a lover of acronyms in the first place but if there is one that makes me feel particularly uneasy it is the dreaded “KPI”. I cannot recount the number of hours of my life lost in meetings and email exchanges in an attempt to make sense of my own performance or that of my team or project only to come up with key performance indicators that felt limp or that didn’t really measure what we were trying to achieve. The reason I find KPIs so dreadful is that they are an abstraction of reality – one that is messy, unpredictable, and non-linear....