EcoRewards Africa- Act Green Get Rewards

 As an environmental and sustainability professional with over 16 yrs. of working experience across Europe, USA and Africa, I developed a keen passion for tangible impact. I have dedicated 24 years of my life since leaving Cameroon at the age of 22 seeking to study environmental engineering in Germany. I have always been driven and strategic and returned to Africa as I always promised myself in 2013 and led the PwC Sustainability and Climate Change Practice in West Africa, led a pilot that launched a mobile payment solution for LPG in Ghana, and launched CHAINT AFRIQUE an innovation hub that will transform homes and communities by making sustainable lifestyles accessible and affordable to all. I am a persistent Greenpreneur with a vision for a more resource efficient world where households, communities, businesses and Government embrace the concept of circular economy via an understanding of the core essence of resource efficiency. 

Globally 2 billion tonnes of waste is generated annually according to the World Bank with 800 million tons being plastics. A significant amount of this ends in the landfills. The waste sector in Africa is laden with a plethora of challenges include inefficiencies from logistics, poor regulation, lack of customer awareness and lack of alternatives to plastics. EcoRewards seeks to work with 40% of urban households to educate them about the opportunities in the circular economy, link households and waste service providers via the digital platform EcoRewards to increase access and provide access to sustainable choices via our in-app ecoStore. EcoRewards is the only solution that is consumer and industry focused addressing the challenge of sustainable consumption which is imperative to the world meeting the SDG Goals in 2030. We seek to enable access to sustainable lifestyles by making it accessible to all in Ghana and beyond Africa.

Consumers in Ghana are limited to opportunities in recycling because of a lack of understanding of the concept of sustainable waste management, lack of access to recycling services and lack of access to sustainable choices even if they opted to be responsible in their consumption. By creating a platform which educates customers about their role in the circular economy, we are creating an army of eco-consumers who are enabled by our platform to undertake more positive actions that resonate beyond plastics to change attitudes and perception to waste disposal. We teach them and reward them for actions that promote the circular economy. We also reduce inefficiencies for waste service providers by providing them a platform that links them to households and communities who request for waste services, facilitating payments via the platform and educating customers on their behalf. By providing an in-app ecoStore as well we provide customers access to sustainable products, making it more affordable for them as they use their rewards to purchase at a discount while providing industry with a platform to market their sustainable products which struggle generally with traditional non-sustainable products.

Our philosophy revolves around engaging consumers, industry and waste service providers to enable circularity. The solution is enabled by an App called EcoRewards Africa which is made up of 3 components:

1- User App

2- Driver App

3- Agent Back-end Portal

4- EcoStore: Our eCommerce Platform

Users download the app and are educated about circularity especially in relation to avoiding and reducing waste consumption. Users are enabled to request for recycling services via the User App. Their request is routed to the Driver Agents who pick up the recycled waste for storage, processing and eventual sale. The users get rewarded via our ecoPoints after each successful request and pickup. Users also make payments for their waste services to the waste service provider via our in-app payment platform reducing inefficiencies in collections which is also a huge burden to waste service providers. 

Users also have access to our in-app ecoStore where they can shop sustainable products at a discount using their ecoPoints obtained during recycling and eventually other positive actions to be included. These will include avoiding the following: plastic bags in supermarkets, plastic straws, plastic bottles, plastic packaging and recycling other household wastes.

We are targeting 40% of urban households, with the assumption that we can reach more if our core customer base is rewarded and enabled to become true eco-consumers which is our intention. We want them to be passionate about the circular economy and provide them with a platform to engage in a way that makes them responsible and accountable towards caring for their environment.

Only 2% of waste produced in Ghana is recycled. We assume that less than 1% of urban households have access to recycling services. The few who are keen to recycle lack access to recycling services because waste service providers end up mixing the recycled waste with landfill waste. By providing education and access to recycling services we enable them to uphold responsibility towards care for the environment, while making it possible for them to have access to sustainable choices via our in-app store. For us, waste service providers include informal waste pickers who lack access to recycled waste. Our platform is opened up for waste service providers at no charge and we seek to train and re-brand them into a recognizable work force in the waste sector. 

Our solution educates households at scale, giving them an opportunity to participate by learning and enabling access to recycling services. We provide pathways for tangible action, giving consumers a tangible means of understanding their role in circular economy starting with waste. We are the only app in Ghana that educates at scale, rewards for instant action and provides sustainable choices to consumers by working with industry to showcase their products on our platform. We drive tangible action by putting an innovative tool that enables participation in the circular economy in a way that is relevant to our platform users.

Coming from a Management Consulting background, I experienced first-hand how industry struggled to create responsible products for consumers. Industry quickly gave up because customers will not be able to afford innovation for sustainability. I also experienced the lack of understanding of climate change, waste and other sustainable development related issues on the side of customers. For me it was important that we develop opportunities that will educate consumers and reward them for positive action while working with industry to develop sustainable choices because policy had failed us. A platform that rewards and educates at scale to me was very imperative. I felt designing a platform that aligns with our way of life, educating, rewarding and interaction was critical to making a lasting difference. Our platform EcoRewards is a digital circular economy ecosystem which is founded on the principle that responsible consumption can be achievable with the right consumer education and requisite sustainability stewardship from industry. Combining this approach is likely to yield the greatest results considering policy instruments are still weak in Ghana and most parts of Africa. EcoRewards educates, enables, mobilizes and connects the waste sector for effective collaboration that enables the circular economy step by step.

Sustainable lifestyles should not be a luxury or privilege to a few. Considering the scale of our impact to the environment, we radically need a paradigm shift in our consumption patterns across consumers and industry. EcoRewards Africa is designed to align with our way of life, influencing and enabling responsible consumption and facilitating responsible production from the industry, while providing and evidence base for policy in the long term. Without a platform that radically enables tangible action from consumers and industry we may not be able to reduce consumption in the scale needed to make a difference in addressing impact by 2050 for example when there is expected to be more plastics in our oceans than fish according to the United Nations. For a radical shift to occur we have to deviate from excessive consumption of plastics to alternatives that are degradable, or mainstream resource efficiency at scale. By encouraging the use of alternative plastics we will eventually accelerate the proliferation of biodegradable alternatives which are currently expensive because of low demand. My passion is driven by the need to encourage more responsible consumption in a way that increases demand for sustainable alternatives and consequently reduce plastic consumption.

As an experienced Environmental and Management Consultant, I have been able to appreciate the importance of holistic solutions to address critical challenges. Environmental problems cannot be solved only by enforcing policy. They require cultural, technical, economic and policy imperatives to be aligned for sustainable and long lasting solutions. I have been privileged to study in Europe, and have returned to Africa to leverage my exposure to solve urgent challenges. 

Understanding the best of both worlds, gives me the necessary ammunition to identify problems and understand what technology can be deployed to address them.

I started off my career as a Programmer in Nigeria, went on to study Environmental and Resource Management in Germany and then attained by vision of understanding and addressing impact at the Oxford Brookes University. I therefore can assess and understand impact, leverage my background and understanding of technology and most important understand how these connect.

I am a holistic and interdisciplinary professional, a good communicator and proficient in tangible innovation. I have managed large and complex projects, and led the implementation of cutting edge innovation leading the pilot of Envirofits LPG SmartGas technology across 200 homes in Accra in 2018. I can manage teams well, mobilize resources and mentor colleagues effectively to help them align with my vision. My walk my talk, and I am a proven advocate for sustainable lifestyles in all I do at home, work, social gatherings and interactions generally. I hope to develop a bigger following to drive the message across effectively.

Starting out as the eldest son in a family of 8 from Africa, I knew my path to prosperity and success was always going to be challenging especially coming from a not so privileged background. My parents are teachers and have thought me that knowledge is the key to every success. I left for Germany at the age of 22 to pursue my desire for impact and technology to solve environmental challenges. After studying the German language and starting with Mechanical engineering in a foreign language, I decided to relocate to Cottbus in former Eastern Germany. I delayed the relocation by one year due to right-wing extremism in Cottbus against Africans, but decided to brave the challenge. I relocated to Cottbus, became the first African to be elected in the Student Parliament, the First African to be elected in the Faculty Council for, was also appointed International Students Speaker. I used the opportunity to bridge the gap on intercultural tolerance and we started an Intercultural summer festival in 2001 which is still being celebrated in Cottbus. I draw strength from adversity to re-invent, renovate and re-energize. I have been in a free fall for too long, time to change that. 

Experiences range from braving racism in Germany, managing depression in the family after our first daughter, relocating to Ghana from London to start my African mission of promoting sustainable living, losing my job in Ghana the day after news of our third child, losing our only line of funding due to the COVID pandemic, being jailed for 12 hours at the Kampala Airport and being deported on 5 December 2019 for refusing to 'facilitate' my entry for a consulting engagement despite having a valid visa in the system and the departure of my family back to Germany in August 2019 and not haven seen family since then. That was unarguable the biggest blow in my life, the team which included my wife fell apart, another partner had to undergo an surgery as well. I rose up to the challenge, re-constituted the new team, organised a retreat with the team in December to reorganize and launched a new service for water dispensing in fact the first of its kind in Ghana. COVID did disrupt alot but we are in the process of revamping our app for relaunch in August 2020 as we embark on launching new services with new partners.

Not applicable

There are already a plethora of apps that help address waste management. They focus purely on trading plastics without any pathway for engaging consumers on other environmental services. Our app is the only app that focuses on sustainable lifestyles, engaging with households and communities in a fun and participative way that encourages belonging, buy-in and collective responsibility towards resource efficiency. We started with waste simply because its the most apparent challenge and where our model could easily mobilize resources for a sustainable and organic growth. We intend to interact with households in a way that revolutionizes the concept of material flow where consumers make conscious decisions about what they consume, share resources and engage with neighbors and friends in a way that enables a collective responsibility sought by many to play their part.

Its a centralized platform for all players and stakeholders in sustainability and the circular economy where positive action is rewarded by ecoPoints which can conveniently be used within the ecoSystem encouraging more participation. The ecoStore as a key feature unlike any other platform has its own currency in ecoPoints which is multinational, decentralized and unaffected by external factors e.g. inflation.

The business case and scalability of EcoRewards is unique as well. Our proposition does not require a dramatic shift in the industry but refines and improves the already established processes by connecting for greater efficiency to provide user experience for waste in transition. ANYONE SEEKING POSITIVE ACTION IS GUARANTEED OF A DIRECT REWARD AS SIMPLE AS THAT.

Under our theory of Change for Sustainable Lifestyles in Africa

 Our digital circular economy platform will enable sustainable lifestyles by addressing inefficiencies in the waste sector in Africa by across 3 critical players: households, waste service providers and industry. 

To achieve sustainable lifestyles, households need education about recycling and awareness on sustainable waste management. They also need access to recycling services and affordable sustainable choices from the industry. All this is hardly available when only 2% of households for example have access to recycling services. Using our tutorials and planned 3D visual engagement aides, we will educate households with specific emphasis on a reward system. We have created essentially a currency only earned by defined actions with a purchasing power so diverse and convenient to everyday life. We will increase recycling and provide more access to recycling services via exposure to waste service providers using our Driver App.

Waste Service providers struggle with low revenue mobilization from lack of means of digital payment for their services, and lack of a means of educating their customers at scale. They also hardly have a means of interacting with their customers, let alone encourage curbside recycling which has the greatest efficiency in municipal recycling. Sometimes even the established waste service providers in Ghana struggle with efficiency  in collecting  with a not so good routine of driving around garbage trucks through communities. EcoRewards presents  a schedule system established largely by the communities which helps the service providers move more efficiently and effectively.By encouraging recycling we also provide a business case for investment in recycling services because access to recycled waste will be enabled by EcoRewards.

The industry as unarguably the biggest “polluter” regarding municipal waste is showing signs of taking responsibility. Extended Polluter Responsibility policies are slowly emerging  across Africa and they are wary of the outcome. They struggle to market their sustainable products because of lack of understanding from the market. By educating households and offering a centralized location for sustainable products we provide a ready and engaged platform for exchange of goods and services increasing market penetration for sustainable products.

We currently serve over 100 households but ave suspended operations due to COVID-19 Pandemic. Our target segmentation for our market is 40% of urban households who ave access to a smartphone, access to waste services, pay for their waste services and are within the target group of educated and exposed individuals willing to change and be a part of the change they want to see. We interviewed 130 households in Madina, Accra last year and 85% of them indicated they are very keen to use our app and willing to recycle their waste. 100% of them had access to smartphones and paid for their waste services. 

We plan to resume operations in September to reach our revised target of 10,000 homes by the end of 2020 our pilot year. In 2021 we intend to increase our user base in Ghana to 245,000 users across Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania where are developing strategic partnerships. By 2025, we would ave reached 6.5 million households affecting 30 million individuals. We aim to maintain a core user base of 50% by 2025.

For our fishnet operations with Aquafil later this year we intend to engage over 150,000 fishermen across 60 fishing communities along the coast of Ghana. 

Our 2030 vision is reach 11 million households across 20 African Countries. We aim to engage actively with 6.5 million users across this 20 countries effectively reaching over 30 million individuals.

Our vision is to be a key enabler for Africa's transformation towards a circular economy through innovation that makes sustainable lifestyles accessible by all. We have a mission to encourage and enable households, communities and businesses across Africa to transition towards more sustainable consumer choices by providing tech-enabled green solutions. We believe sustainable lifestyles should be affordable, accessible, available and aspirational to every one, not just the privileged who can afford. We intend to achieve this by creating and ecoSystem of consumers and industry proponents. We will educate consumers and reward them for positive and responsible behaviour (strategic advocacy) while providing access to sustainable goods (ecoStore). Our digital platform ecoRewards Africa will be the main enabler wit evolving functionalities to serve various stakeholders.

We plan to engage with over 6 million households over the next 5 years, with an active user base of 3.3 million households, representing over 15 million people across 11 countries. This represents 20% of our target urban population of 16.8 million households. We will have enabled the recycling of 470,000 tons of plastic waste, distributed 27 billion ecoPoints, through education and exposure to the circular economy reduced carbon emissions by 2.8 Million Metric tons from enabling the recycling of 470,000 tons of plastics. 

In our discarded fishnets operations with Aquafil next year we would have avoided the disposal of 1400 tons of discarded fishing nets from entering the ocean, representing 0.2% of 600,000 tons of discarded fishing nets entering the ocean every year.

Our concept is new and as struggled to attract investors. We had one investor who pulled out on 27th March citing inability to make further payments because it was not clear how we could get to revenue with COVID-19 and restrictions in place. We have also struggled with technical configuration, changing the coding team for the 3rd time now to a reliable partner who has buy-in as equity holder wit stringent KPIs.

Access to reliable internet services is also an issue with sporadic interruptions to services for sort periods of time. 

Access to data for access to the internet could also be an issue for some of our users especially the informal waste sector operatives who also don't often have access to smartphones.

Not all our user base as access to smartphones considering most of our informal sector workers will not have access to nor the understanding of using the app conveniently.

There is lack of collaboration between proponents of the waste sector in Ghana with lack of sharing information and insight in a manner that engenders collective growth in the sector.

The waste sector is regulated by franchises which distributes collection across the country. Most waste service providers are not capable to providing recycling services but do not allow informal waste pickers to assist them with collection.

Scaling up to over 10 million households by 2030 will entail a solid legal team that will assist with addressing legal and policy challenges as we grow across 20 African Countries.

On revenue mobilization we have scaled back our operations to a level that can be supported by revenue from consulting engagements. I currently consult for Diageo Africa and PFAN and generate revenue sufficient to scale up slowly but will take much longer to address the critical challenges within the waste sector at scale. For sustainable lifestyles to be mainstreamed, these challenges will need to be addressed holistically leveraging our ecoSystem approach in creating a digital circular economy platform.

We are engaging with 3 proponents to leverage the app functionality for collections of waste material. As part of our operational pillar for circular economy in our CHAiNT ACADEMY, we are about starting a collaboration with Aquafil and Wearable Collections to collect discarded fishnets across 63 fishing communities in Ghana. The collection was paused after the collection of over 25 tonnes of discarded fishing nets. In collecting we reduce ocean plastics, wile educating fishermen on the perils of coean pollution. Revenue collected will collected from collection and sale of nets will go to support our advocacy operations especially which are the most difficult to sustain. We also talking with the distributor of Nespresso in Ghana about leveraging the app functionality to mobilize for drop of points for Nespresso coffee capsules across Accra (early stage discussions). 

Our app is inclusive and can be used by all waste service providers enabling a level playing field. The app will be designed upgraded to python, a computer coding platform that uses less data. 

We currently partner with the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre who supported us with a Proof of Concept Grant of USD 13,500 dollars last year. We also partner with Footprint Africa in an accelerator that is assisting us with our ambition to become B Corp Certified by 2021.

Other partners include Jekora Waste Ventures who supported us in testing  app across 100 homes in Osu and have an MOU with us to use the app free of charges for 2 years.

We have signed up close to 15 ecoPartners, who are industry proponents with sustainable products are align with our philosophy for enable sustainable lifestyles. Their products are given to CHAINT at a discount, to enable us to leverage the margin to fund the ecoPoints which are used on the platform to ensure that the incentive mechanism is market driven and sustainable considering the lack of sustainable incentives has been a critical barrier to the adoption of sustainable lifestyles. We intend to signup over 200 ecoPartners in Ghana which will include night clubs, bars, hotels, restaurants and Chop Bars (Local Eateries). Through exposing their sustainable imperatives we provide access to sustainable choices for our app users at a discount only available by using the paltform to collect ecoPoints. We will not sell ecoPoints as a philosophy. EcoPoints can only be obtained by tangible action on the platform. We will eventually expand our services to include other environmental services. e.g. water, electricity and eco-mobility for ecoPoints to provide more options for participation.

For us revenue is critical to our success of innovating for sustainability. Our revenue is split across the core sustainability consulting services, app related services and product and programme development. Over 60% of our core expenditure in 2019 went to payment for app development considering is the most important enabler of our digital ecoSystem. This was funded purely from equity contributions from one Partner who pulled out in March 2020 citing difficulties relating to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

We solve the following problems: 

1 - Increase knowledge on resource efficiency to enable for recycling and appreciation of the circular economy

2 - Waste Service Providers: Collect payments for waste service via the App payment Gateway

3 - Market Sustainable products at a discount as a means of providing access to sustainable choices for our customer.

4- Enable more recycling for Waste Service Providers who trade plastics at 1 cedis/kg in Accra

Revenue Stream1: By providing access to paying households we increase revenue mobilization for waste service providers. We educate, reward, remind about payments and reward for regular payment. We charge 5% on any collections we made via the system.

Revenue Model2: We collect 5% of the sale of all plastics mobilize by our platform

Revenue Model3: We get a margin for every sale of sustainable products we close on our ecoStore which, which goes to fund the ecoPoints used for discounted sales.

We will trade in discarded fishnets at EURO 400/ton FOB as part of our revenue mobilisation plan.

Our pathway to financial sustainability will entail raising equity capital, planned kickstarter rounds for our Circular Product Lines and App consulting services.

Investment Capital: We are planning a Series 0 Seed Funding Round for Q3 of 2021 when some level of calm in the global economy would have returned to bolster investment confidence for venture capitalist.

Grants: We are targeting 3 grants in 2020 including:

1- Elevate Prize (USD 150K in 2020, 100K in 2021 and 50K in 2022), 

2- Our Happy Hands Project (distributing waste soap collected from hotels to impoverished communities who lack soap GHS 80,000), our Netcycle Initiative to empower fishing communities to embrace ocean plastics as a source for livelihood (Sale of nets will fund strategic advocacy associated with working with Fisheries Communities), 

3-Our Nespresso engagement to provide strategic services to mobilise the collection of Nespresso coffee capsules across Accra leveraging scheduling, location and reward functionality of the EcoRewards App (We are discussing with Aluworks who will offtake Aluminium Capsules. Price point per kilo and sale of coffee as nitrogen enriched manure will determine grant contribution from Nespresso Ghana)

Consulting engagements totalling USD 30,000 has been signed until end of 2020 to cover our core Opex. 

We have signed agreement with new app developer who will take some equity for long term development of the app and consolidate code base of all 4 functionalities of the app.

Further details on our path to revenue sustainability can be seen in the image below.

Our only investor who pulled out on 27 March 2020 after missing 2 investment installments paid USD 72,500 as equity contribution for 10% of the firm. Outstanding was $52,500 to make up the planned investment of $125,000. He indicated loss of interest and increased uncertainty in the market to continue any investments in 2020. This greatly affected all plans we had in 2020 e.g. New Office Renovations, Office Equipment, Marketing and planned thought leadership engagements. He is suggesting a conversion of the Share Agreement into a loan payable from 1st January 2021, at a rate of 120% APR (10% per month) which is currently being negotiated in an out of court negotiation on the original share agreement.

Figure below outlines a detailed revenue split since starting operations in 2018.

We are planning a kickstarter round in Q2 of 2021 to launch our suite of circular products. We intend to plan a road show in Q3 of 2021 to raise seed funding in the form of Equity after valuation in Q2 of 2021. We are looking at raising $250K in equity contributions.

We are seeking $300K from the Elevate Initiative to consolidate operations between 2020-2022. We further intend to mobilise for a Series A equity investment in Q3 of 2022 and a Series B round in 2024 to consolidate our expansion into over 10 African Countries.

Our revised expenses for 2020 is estimated at $216,465 assuming that planned sales and anticipated grants will be realized.

We barely sustain operations and almost shut down in Q1 of 2020 when it was apparent we could not continue operations because of lack of revenue streams and our investor pulling out and requesting repayment in July 2020. We had to re-structure our operational plans to focus on interventions that will add great value to our partners. We could not scale the app as planned because of COVID lock-down restrictions where only critical businesses were allowed to circulate for most of March until easing of restrictions in late April, operations had already been constraint by lack of equity contribution in Q1 and the uncertainties did not allow for any consistent planning. Our water dispenser services was put on hold after our last event in Ashesi University where we avoided 2000 plastic bottles during a career fair and had over 25 events lined up. 

We need exposure from Elevate, Mentorship and Legal support. We also to attract some strategic personalities to our Board.

We intend to use the funds to consolidate operations in 2020, and pay for the further development of the App Ecosystem while developing other products including Happy Hands, Netcycle (sale of discarded fishing nets), mobilization of post-consumer PETs for export to fulfil an offtaker contract we have for recycled PETs at EUR 350/ton, cracked and packed. The revenue streams are healthy, but will need to co-invest to realize revenue because the discarded preforms is FOB contract where we fund collections and get our expenses refunded. 

We need some further assistance on refining the operational model considering our ambition to leverage waste service provider fees may not be fully realized because we may act as Waste Service Providers to guarantee the quality of service we anticipate for our customers. 

We need to raise some additional funds to sustain our operations for sustainable revenue mobilization, some of which may not be realized if we don't raise operational capital.

We will be seeking the recruitment of a full-time accountant, marketing and business development Manager to intensify revenue mobilization for the app and ecoSystem players.

We intend to consolidate our Governance system by putting in place a working Board. We have an impending legal challenge with a former investor and will require assistance as we scale across Africa over the next two Elevate Years. Most importantly we seek for exposure from the MIT Community.

Our operational Philosophy is code named L.I.R.I.Cs, L for Leadership, I for Innovation, R for Respect, I for Inclusivity, C for Collaboration and S for Sustainability. Collaboration and developing partnerships to us is critical to our success and ambitions to make sustainable lifestyles affordable, available, accessible and aspirational to all by 2030 working with 11 million homes across 20 African countries educating and rewarding for positive actions and embrace the circular economy as a new lifestyle. 

Partnerships will help us exceed our targets and optimise resources. We will need technology, branding, innovation, engineering and financial modelling partnerships as we get into Stage 1 of our implementation. 

We are continuing discussions with RecycleGo to leverage their blockchain platform to consolidate our planned enabling of our ecoRewards ecoSystem into a discentralised ledger system where transparency and rewards for positive action will be realised. We are also discussing with Next Big Thing in Berlin who have suggested to assist us with out BlockChain Wite Paper we intend to use for our Series B fund raising in 2022. 

Other collaborations include informal sector waste pickers, Waste Service Providers, Gated Communities, Ministry of Sanitation in Ghana, Ghana Wildlife Society who will lead on fishing community advocacy when we scale the net collection and adapt the app to serve as a tool for reporting lost fishing gear or stranded marine species affected by ghost gear on the sore.