For the past several years, Nzambi Matee has been transforming waste into reusable materials through creative and ground-breaking methods.
A trained mechanical engineer and environmentalist, Nzambi has spearheaded efforts to recycle plastic into bricks that can give concrete a run for its money.
As the founder of Gjenge Makers, she has created a company dedicated to turning plastic waste into paving bricks, building blocks, and other materials, and what sets her apart is that she has designed her own machines to achieve this transformation.
Nzambi's journey began in 2017 when she quit her job as a data analyst to focus on sustainability and waste management, inspired by the sight of plastic bags littering the streets of Nairobi.
She set up a small laboratory in her mother’s backyard to experiment with creating pavers from plastic waste.
“After a year of developing the right ratios, I was able to produce my first brick in 2018 and a self-made machine in 2019 to scale up production,” she explains.
Nzambi’s innovations include an extruder for heating and mixing plastic and sand, a hydraulic press for moulding, and a plastic crusher for consistent melting.
“Each machine began as a concept, was designed, and then fabricated in partnership with local fabricators from Kariobangi Light Industries,” she adds.
So far, Gjenge Makers has built six machines and recycled over 200 tonnes of plastic waste into 328,120 pavers, covering 8,203 square metres, with her work recognised as a successful strategy for addressing plastic pollution in Kenya.
Nzambi's innovation is just one example of the importance of technological innovation in the fight against climate change.
Experts agree it is a strategy that plays a major role in the future, as the fight against global warming continues to gain momentum.
Research indicates that the climate tech industry is one of the fastest- growing in Africa.
According to data from research firm Briter Bridges, a market intelligence firm, there are more than 500 startups operating across Africa in the climate-tech space in industries such as clean energy, sustainable materials, agriculture, e-mobility, transportation, and nature-based solutions.
And not only has the number and range of solutions increased, but the type and availability of investment have expanded significantly.
The Briter Bridges study indicates that between 2015 and 2022, 147 of these startups were able to raise a total of $2.1 billion from venture capital investors, highlighting the rise and investability of climate-tech in Africa.
But even as Africa strides to set the pace in climate tech innovation, most of the funding these startups received, came from foreign investors based mainly in the US and Europe, as African based funders shied away from such investments.
It is not a bad thing to attract foreign investors but, on the flipside, experts are worried that the continent might end up not reaping the maximum from its innovation.
According to Fred Waithaka, Chief Corporate Affairs officer at Safaricom, one of a few African based companies that have tossed themselves into investing in climate tech innovation, financing is the major challenge.
“The long-term nature of such projects requires a long-term financing, money that a significant percentage of local based companies do not have. This could be another reason why you're not seeing corporates investing in that direction.”
According to him, “big” companies such as Safaricom can afford to put more money into such projects that not necessarily bring in immediate returns, perhaps because they may have bigger shock absorbers which allow them for more patient capital. This is not always the case for a majority of African based companies.
Further, Waithaka says, what also impedes local investment is the continental landscape which has continued to face challenges in terms of policy. “There has to be an enabling environment for innovation to happen.
"We should be able to ask ourselves questions such as, are the policies being passed too restrictive, such that innovators then are not able to work within that environment, or are they friendly, accommodating and cooperative enough with innovators, so that then we're able to push and advance whatever it is that we are doing?”
Against this backdrop of a myriad of challenges investment and financing of African climate tech has been left in the hands of foreigners, and this has a downside to it.
Maryanne Ochola, managing director of Endeavor Kenya, a mentorship programme for startups, says, relying too much on foreign aid may be disadvantageous because foreign investors may lack sufficient knowledge or networks in the local markets, which limits their ability to provide mentorship or connections to African startups.
Also, she says, foreign investors tend to have different expectations, preferences, and risk appetites compared to local investors, who tend to have a better understanding of the needs of local startups.
“In 2020 and 2021 for instance, we had new funds coming into the continent that were very opportunistic, once the global macro-economic conditions shifted, they went back to the markets they were used to.
Particularly when it got to series B, C and D stage funding, startups really started struggling because all their investors were from abroad,” notes Ochola.
Ochola however says that not all hope is lost, more investors based in Africa continue to put up specialized climate funds that innovators can tap into.
“We’ve seen this with funds such as Novastar and E3 Capital in particular who are based here and have raised quite significant rounds,” notes Ochola.
She says banks are becoming more involved in the startup ecosystem particularly through securitisation deals, with firms such as Sun King and M-kopa that operate in the cleantech space, benefiting from this.
“These are sort of first in the market but because of that, it starts to create a playbook for what other companies that carry assets on their balance sheets can do, and what innovative financing mechanisms can come up which is really good for the ecosystem overall,” notes Ochola.
She points out that key stakeholders such as lawyers are also becoming more involved in supporting innovation as a means to address climate change, with a lot of law firms incorporating climate practice and IP protection in their services.
From an innovator perspective, Ochola says there is a lot of opportunity, not necessarily in creating a pure climate business, but rather in looking at existing business models and seeing how they can be aligned to be green and to be serving the interests of mitigating climate change.
But even with this, experts insist that more should be done to ensure more African companies and organisations invest in climate tech innovation, but before that is fully realised, the rights of African innovators getting funding from foreign investors have to be protected.
According to Makenzi Muthusi, a partner in deals and strategy at KPMG, while in more developed economies such as the US, China, and parts of Europe, innovation is jealously protected, the situation is different in Africa, where in spite of the importance of intellectual property protection, many innovators still find it very difficult to access patents, copyright, trademarks, industrial designs, geographical indications and traditional knowledge, used to protect their inventions.
He attributes this to a number of factors, key among them being the high costs related to obtaining what is needed to protect inventions.
A laid out parking lot with bricks made from recycled plastic outside the offices of Gjenge Makers Limited on February 24, 2021.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu| Nation Media Group
“For instance, to get a patent in Kenya, an innovator has to pay a filing fee of Sh3000 due when the application is filed, publication fee of Sh3000 due after 18 months from the filing date, examination fee of Sh5000 due within 3 years from the filing date, and grant fee of Sh3000 due once the patent has been accepted for grant.”
Meanwhile, he says, to secure a trademark, one has to pay a total of about Sh12,000, where Sh3000 is for carrying out a search to ascertain whether your trademark, brand name, logo, signature or slogan is already registered by another entity.
“Once you have carried out a search, you pay Sh4000 for registration, Sh3000 for advertisement, and another Sh2000 for registration again.”
Worth noting, he says, is that it also takes very long to process some of these intellectual properties. “It takes an average of 19 months to get a patent for a utility model in Kenya, whereas the trademark registration process could take an average of 4 months.
Three of these are to take account of any objections from third parties after the trade mark has been advertised.
What this does, he adds, is that it delays an innovator from introducing their product to the market.
If they do that before the patent is ready, they risk having their ideas duplicated with nothing to help them get compensation for infringement of their intellectual property.
Additionally, experts are worried that there is also a huge knowledge gap when it comes to protection of intellectual property in Africa.
“Intellectual Property is only taught in law classes, but scholars studying for courses such as technology, medicine and engineering also need to learn how to protect their research findings.”
Muthusi also notes that many, if not all researchers and scholars doing investigations have never been introduced to basic courses on patenting, legislation and the methods of identifying new inventions and information not in the public domain.
“Such basic courses should be mandatory and cross-cutting at school.”
According to experts, the government, in collaboration with innovation hubs, universities and research centres should strive to simplify this key subject that involves a lot of legal languages into content that is understandable to the majority of African innovators.
With this in mind, Muthusi says, actually foreign investment for climate financing could come in handy for the continent.
Also, he insists that African governments need to enact robust regulatory frameworks for the continent to attract more climate financing.
According to him, as a result of lack of robust regulatory frameworks in most African countries, investors have shied away from fully tapping into the market and instead opted for alternative markets.
“When you look at Singapore for instance, startups qualify for some tax incentives such as the research and development tax incentive and the startup tax exemption scheme, that make them attractive to investors,” notes Muthusi.
