Zima Homes

There are no sustainable urban homes that the bottom 40% can financially access for ownership and long term wealth creation owing to un-sustainable and non-scaleable housing models in Kenya. Despite the innovative solutions and companies made at individual solutions to climate change, material innovation, and human well being there are no scale-able, and replicable vehicles where these solutions can be applied. Yet, Kenya has an existing housing deficit of 2 million homes and an annual rising deficit of 200,000 homes (Habitat for humanity) and only 2% of the formally constructed houses target lower-income families. As a result, the number of people forced to live in overcrowded and poorly serviced informal settlements is rising significantly. 

Housing affordability in Kenya is defined as homes where the median income household spends no more than 30% of  their gross monthly household income on rent or mortgage payments. Kenya’s median individual gross monthly income is KES 50,000 ($415), which translates to homes which cost KES 3.4 million ($28,215) or less (Cytonn Real Estate Topicals, 2022). Environmental sustainability is also often overlooked as a priority in affordable housing even though the building and construction industry contributes 39% to global carbon emissions and is responsible for 50% of raw material consumption (UNEP). Research shows that we spend over 90% of our lives indoors and that buildings shape our quality of life and wellbeing more than any other physical environment. Design can improve health and human experience in buildings (NHAPS). With 2030 around the corner, a scale-able and sustainable solution to urban housing for the bottom 40% will bring us closer to meeting climate, SDGs & Kenyans’ vision 2030 targets.

Zima uses a combination of prefabricated innovation construction technology to deliver low-carbon apartment buildings that are affordable and accessible to the bottom 40%. At Zima Homes we strongly believe that not one technology will solve the climate crisis, housing deficit and poverty alleviation. Our pilot project has already built and prototyped technologies that have made our building 30% lighter, and 50% more materials efficient and which have now successfully also been accepted by the target market purchasing our units. To scale, our business model combines a for-profit development company (D-reit & I-reit) with a non-profit think tank to ensure long term and sustainable scale with embedded, innovation, impact, and MEL systems (Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning). 

Zima Homes uses six main approaches to sustainable design that include site design, unit design, structural and ducting grids, prefabricated components, EDGE green building certification - a tool by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to measure energy and water savings and embodied energy in materials -  and sustainable construction practices. Zima leverages local labour and materials to reduce the carbon emissions of transport and the use of construction management software reduces paper printing of documents. In addition, we use energy efficient and electronically powered machinery, on-site rainwater harvesting mechanisms, energy efficient lighting, and water efficient toilets. We set up an on-site recycling point, have arrangements with organisations for use of leftover materials, and have regular training for site staff on sustainable construction practices.

The project also leverages prefabricated components to reduce the carbon footprint of the building, reduce construction timelines which enhance affordability, and enable the project to scale due to standardization and replication. The project employs four key sustainable and innovative prefabricated material choices: a prefabricated beam and block system that is used for all slabs, precast concrete panels for internal walls, prefabricated recycled plastic pavers in the courtyard, and prefabricated twist blocks used in the external retaining walls. In the scope of this project, the prefabricated components used are made from concrete which in itself is a high carbon material but compared to the traditional mode of construction using a cast slab, this process is faster, has better quality controls, lighter which is comparatively better for the environment.

The design has modular layouts designed using a 2.8 x 7.5m grid, ensuring an easy-to-build, replicable model for future developments. A fixed structural and ducting grid makes the project more sustainable, scalable and efficient. The modular structural grid of 2.4 by 7.5 is able to accommodate all the unit typologies. The ducting is positioned every two grid modules regardless of the unit layout which gives a project configuration that is flexible, scalable and open to future adaptive reuse of the building. This ducting system also enables the project to be ‘green ready’ and any additional green services added on after hand-over such as solar hot water piping, would not require major design adjustments. 

Link to flythrough video: 

Link to showhouse 3D walk through: https://my.matterport.com/show...

Affordability for us is the ability for middle and lower income households to afford a reasonably priced home, at an amount which does not prevent them from meeting other needs. Zima Homes targets the bottom 40% in the Kenyan market that have been locked out of the current available housing stock. Only 2% of formal housing stock is for the low-income segment of the population. The three more specific profiles that fit the Zima Home target owner/ occupier are aged between 23 and 45 with household income from KES 27,500 & KES 87,500. 

• The Young Professional (23- 33 years): Earns between KES 27,500 - KES 45,000 per month in their first formal/ informal job. They are single or newly married with no children and likely live in informal or semi-informal neighborhoods with close access to transport to reduce the cost of a commute. Their future aspiration from a housing standpoint is to live in a studio until they can earn more to move to a bigger house or move when they start a family.
• The Young Family (28 - 38 years): Newly married couple with no children or just one child and earns between KES 30,000 - 60,000 per month. They live in a rental house in densely populated neighborhoods and are interested in areas in close proximity to malls and urban facilities. Their future aspirations from a housing standpoint is to grow their family and own a larger house where they can educate their children in as good a school as they can afford.
• The Mid-size Family (38 - 45 years): The family has 2 - 3 children and earns between KES 50,000 - KES 87,500. They live in a rented house in densely populated neighborhoods but are able to save for their family’s needs. Their future aspirations are to move to a larger self-built home outside of the city.  

Zima Homes has prototyped and built affordable and sustainable urban homes that cost less than KES 4M that are pre- aligned with end user finance providers to enable home ownership for the bottom 40%. 

Zima Homes is also committed to delivering impact across different social-economic sectors and across 6 different SDGs including SDG 1- No Poverty, SDG 5- Gender Equality, SDG 8 Decent Work & Economic Growth, SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure, SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities and SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities. 

The first Zima Homes development which is scheduled for construction completion in Q2 of 2024 will benefit 260 people, 50% of whom will be women. The project in the end will have created 200 jobs with 30% of those jobs being to women. 

Environmental impact complements the social-economic impact with the target to achieve EDGE Advanced to net zero carbon targets for each Zima Homes development to come. The first Zima Homes development has already achieved 50% less carbon with a recent EDGE Certification.

I, Etta Madete, the Zima Homes Co-Founder & Executive Director, co-founded Zima Homes to catalyse systemic change in the market and to build better homes for all, in a city I was born in and have always called home. I have experienced the problem we are trying to solve directly, having lived in over 14 different homes in Nairobi- from four-per-room hostels, one-window studios, 1-bedroom social housing without running water, to spacious 2 bedroom apartments so far away from the city centre, that we were robbed three times in one month. In my view, the right to adequate shelter is constitutional, but no matter the economic class, it must also be and can be affordable, dignified, sustainable, and inclusive. 

It was not enough to conceptulise Zima Homes as a product that responds to the affordable housing crisis in Kenya, we needed to understand what our target market would like in a home, ensuring that women were especially represented. We carried out focus groups with at least 700 people from the community we targeted with the pilot development. Data gathered from these focus groups informed the design of Zima Homes as well as the pricing model for the units. Some of the key priorities highlighted from these stakeholder discussions include the connection of the development to the urban fabric and social infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, bus stops, markets, and public transit; and having adaptable unit layouts that accommodate adequate spaces for women and children. We have since continued to engage with stakeholders through workshops, seminars, and continuous site visits and presentations.

As a registered architect, sustainable design expert, Edge expert with over 7 years of experience in the construction space; I am supported in the leadership of Zima Homes by my co-Founder, James Mitchell with 15 years of experience in the built environment and Freda Rutere as Chief Operating Officer with 15+ years of experience. Our team also has over 10 in-house experts across different disciplines which has enabled us to deliver one of the first affordable housing developments to attain preliminary EDGE certification in the East Africa region. This cumulative experience positions us to deliver on our mandate.

This is our first project which is also currently under construction. We have already moved from the concept stage of the project we carried out focus groups with at least 700 people from the community we targeted with the this first development. Data gathered from these focus groups informed the design of Zima Homes as well as the pricing model for the units. 

We have not started serving any end-users with our product yet but have already started to sell the product to end-user. The housing units will be occupied when construction has been completed on the whole development which is projected to be sometime in the second quarter of 2024.

We have employed a total of 94 people on the Zima Homes construction site, 15 of whom are women, representing 16% of all workers. The construction workers also fall under the bottom 40% that we are also targeting with our affordable housing product. We consider this to be our first stage of impact. 

The construction phase has also been a knowledge and skills transfer opportunity for the workers on site. The beam and block system was used on the project, something that the workers on site had to be trained on. The use of pre-fabricated elements by Kwangu Kwako and the adoption of solar energy with Solariskit, world’s first flatpack solar collector are also skills transferred to the team on site. 

Our pilot project is underway and is EDGE certified, priced below KES 4M, and with market traction (30% sold). The next step (Zima 2) wants to see Zima achieve an even greener and more affordable design without compromising affordability, and MIT-SOLVE can help us achieve this through connecting us to a community of like-minded solvers (technologies to trial) and partners to (technical or monetary) to support us in building a robust, scalable and long term strategy and refined product for impact. 

Our theory of change envisions a world where the bottom 40% own and occupy sustainable & good quality urban homes. To solve the problem that there are no sustainable & good quality urban homes that the bottom 40% can financially access for ownership & long term wealth creation. To do this we have three key strategic objectives: firstly to develop a standardised, replicable design and project delivery system, co-designing tech-based credit scoring system suited for informal economies, co-design inclusive and affordable end-user finance systems, development of an affordable housing think tank that tests, researches, prototypes scale-able building technologies to improve sale, afford-ability and sustainability. 

To really achieve this we believe technology and innovation in the built environment is paramount. All these require both monetary and non- monetary support by connecting to a community of like minded solvers, connecting to a community innovating so that we can trial products in our developments, partners in digitisation in all our processes for efficiency, quality control and so we can focus on our core business. Firstly to really scale technical support in strategy, financial, investments readiness are key. Lastly, monetary support in the form of grant funding to drive material efficiency - improvement on existing technologies and integration of renewable energy in an affordable way energy Solar as a viable alternative to hot water heating.

Zima uses a combination of prefabricated innovation construction technology to deliver low-carbon apartment buildings that are affordable and accessible to the bottom 40%. At Zima we strongly believe that not one technology will solve the climate crisis, housing deficit and poverty alleviation. Our pilot project has already built and prototyped technologies that have made our building 30% lighter, and 50% more materials efficient and which have now successfully also been accepted by the target market purchasing our units. 

Firstly, Kwangu Kwako panels, originally used for single storey affordable homes, were adopted in Zima homes for internal partition walling. This technology, adapted for multifamily dwellings, has proven to reduce carbon than the local alternative, faster construction time, less finishes and long-term maintenance, and increasing internal space and occupant well being.  Second, Start-somewhere twist blocks used originally for slum upgrading efforts, are being used for landscape retaining walls instead of reinforced concrete. Thirdly, Gjenge recycled plastic pavers instead of concrete used in the external walkways. Lastly, a prefabricated post-beam slab system that uses less concrete and saves time and resources on site (dry system). Beyond materials, we are prototyping SolarisKits, the world's first flat packed solar hot water collector on one of our bocks

By working with and combining existing and new construction technologies in the market, and adopting them in a scale-able low carbon apartment building, our solution is capable of driving lasting and large-scale impact. All with an ultimate goal to build and demonstrate the first Net-zero Carbon home under KES 4M by 2040. With 2030 around the corner, a scale-able and sustainable solution to urban housing for the bottom 40% will bring us closer to meeting climate, SDGs & Kenyans’ vision 2030 targets. 

Our impact cuts across Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals and across 6 SDGs, anchored by 6 strategic pillars - Team, Sustainable, Digitisation, Governance, Innovation and Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning, guided by a Theory of Change. 

• ESG Impact Strategy:

Environmental: Environmental sustainability is a key impact focus area. We therefore aim to achieve EDGE certification and achieve net-zero carbon on at least 10% of our future developments. We will also ensure 100% digitisation of all processes whilst ensuring we adhere to local regulations on environmental sustainability. 
Governance: We will ensure the diversity of the Zima board, executive and management that is also accountable to the company’s triple bottom line. 

• SDG Impact Strategy:

Our SDG impact strategy cuts across 6 different SDGs including SDG 1- No Poverty, SDG 5- Gender Equality, SDG 8 Decent Work & Economic Growth, SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure, SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities and SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities. 

• SDG 1 - No Poverty:  Our impact goals include ensuring 80% of owner occupiers living or renting Zima Homes are from the bottom 40%, ensuring 80% of Zima Homes cost below KES 4M, 60% of Zima Homes are paid for using alternative end-user finance mechanisms and 60% of owner occupiers living or renting Zima Homes are from the informal economy.
• SDG 5 - Gender Equality and SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities: Our goal here is to ensure we have no discrimination or harassment cases recorded and ensure 50% gender representation at different levels - board, leadership and staff.
• SDG 8 - Decent Work & Economic Growth: We hope to create 20,000 jobs as we work towards developing 10,000 units by 2033. 50% of those jobs will be for women. We want to create employment opportunities for the youth and our goal is ensuring that 50% of the jobs are for the youth between ages 18-35. The development of Zima Homes is also an opportunity for knowledge transfer and training. We therefore want to train at least 10,000 people and also ensure that at least 5,000 have new & tested vocational skills.
• SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure: Our impact goal is to have 5 incubated technologies and innovations per project. This will be complemented by ensuring each project has 40% industrialised/ factory made building components. 
• SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities & Communities: Developing dignified sustainable housing that promotes community living is an important part of our mission. We aim to ensure each project has 60% open space per project, ensure 30% of all units are owned/ occupied by users formerly from sum and informal settlements and that we deliver 10,000 units by 2033.

We will keep ourselves accountable by publishing and sharing our impact results, progress and learnings. Under our ESG impact strategy, we will measure our success against the number of Zima Homes that are EDGE Certified, EDGE Advanced or net zero. We are already tracking with our first Zima Homes project that has received preliminary EDGE Certification, making it one of a few in East Africa. The goal is to ensure that all Zima Homes developments are EDGE Certified as a bare minimum, that we achieve EDGE Advanced certification on at least 20% of those developments and net-zero carbon on at least 10% of our future developments. 

The number of projects we will acquire a National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) license for is also one of the metrics we will track. The goal is to ensure that all our projects have this license. Our metrics under social and governance include, the number of approved and established SOPs and the board composition by gender, location, role and other diversity metrics. 

The metrics to help track our success towards the goals we have set across the 6 SDGs - SDG 1- No Poverty, SDG 5- Gender Equality, SDG 8 Decent Work & Economic Growth, SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure, SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities and SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities - that our work cuts across will include:

• Percentage of owner occupiers living or renting a Zima Home from the bottom 40% (goal is for 80% of occupiers to be from the bottom 40%).
• Percentage Zima Homes below KES 4M (goal is to have 80% of units in each development selling at less then KES 4M).
• Percentage of Zima Homes with monthly payments below KES 30K per month (goal is to have 80% of Zima Homes with monthly payments below KES 30K per month).
• Percentage of Zima Homes paid for using alternative end-user finance mechanisms (goal is to have 60% of all Zima Homes paid for using alternative end-user financing mechanisms).
• Percentage of owner occupiers living or renting a Zima Home from the informal economy (the goal is to aim for 60% of owner occupiers living or renting a Zima Home from the informal economy). 
• The number of discrimination or harassment complaints (the goal is to have no harassment or discrimination complaints).
• The number of jobs we are able to create and the percentage of those jobs that will go to women and the youth is a metric we will be tracking for all our developments. We have already started to track this for the current Zima Homes project. 
• We will track the number of incubated technologies and innovations per project, the percentage of industrialised/ factory made building components per project, the percentage of materials made or procured locally and the percentage of open spaces per project.

Our Theory of Change (ToC) is designed to solve the problem of inadequate good quality and sustainable urban homes for the bottom 40% in Kenya, a problem exacerbated by inaccessible financing options for this population to create wealth and own homes. 

The Theory of Change is guided by three pillars: 

• Availability: 

Kenya has an annual housing demand of 250,000 units with an estimated supply of 50,000 units, culminating in a housing deficit of 2 million units, or 80% deficit. We are working towards a Kenya with a zero deficit of quality* urban housing under KES 4M. Quality for us means that it meets global standards of dignity, health & wellbeing. Our expected short term outcomes are getting Zima Homes to become a reputable and respected tier one developer delivering over 500 quality homes under KES 4M per year. 

How do we intend to get here? We will deliver 10,000 homes under KES 4M by 2033 and a 1’000-home’ standardised, replicable and inclusive for-profit development model. All of these will be achieved through scalable delivery by building a triple bottom line (people, profit and planet) development company. 

We ultimately want to set an example for other developers and demonstrate that it is possible to build sustainable affordable urban homes that are accessible to the bottom 40%.

• Affordability: 

Only 2% of the formally constructed houses in Kenya target lower-income families. We are working towards a scenario where over 70% of Zima homes are owned, and/or occupied by the bottom 40% with a 50/50 gender balance. We want this to be complemented by workers in the informal economy being able to get credible credit rating.

How will we get here? We see a clear end-user finance design will be key. This will be done by creating a credit scoring system suited for informal economies, developing and trialing at least 4 end-user finance solutions - Tenant -purchase schemes (TPS), mortgages, longer payment plans, & Real estate investment trusts (Reits).  We will also co-design a credit scoring system suited for informal economies with partners and inclusive and affordable end-user finance systems.

• Sustainability: 

Under this pillar, our efforts are geared towards driving change that culminates in all new urban housing under KES 4M being sustainable and of good quality. This can only be achieved if we have sustainable and good quality housing policies, laws and guidelines to are developed, implemented and enforced. 

Zima Homes will support this by ensuring that all our homes are sustainable and of good quality such that the quality of life and wellbeing is enhanced. We will also ensure other developers and incentivised and trained on how to deliver good quality sustainable housing. 

Our direct outputs will include publication of sustainable & good quality housing related case studies, articles and research papers, stakeholder workshops, seminars and training. We will also participate in public policies, laws, and setting guidelines on quality housing amendments and proposals.

Zima uses a combination of prefabricated innovation construction technology to deliver low-carbon apartment buildings affordable and accessible to the bottom 40%. At Zima we strongly believe that not one technology will solve the climate crisis, housing deficit and poverty alleviation in time. The ultimate solution, will combine multiple innovations into a sale-able and replicable delivery vehicle.

For Zima Homes, inclusivity during both design and construction was an important factor to consider and was three-fold. Firstly there was a focus on having women representation in design decision making at every stage of the project. As well as a focus on gender equity on the construction site through non-discriminatory policies and procedures; being intentional about hiring women for construction work, and in the quality and design of sanitary facilities, safety gear, access, and working hours to enable safety, security, and comfort for all during working hours and as they transit to and from the site for work. Secondly diversity and inclusivity means involving the community in project processes by prioritising local labor and holding annual community workshops and check-ins as the project progresses.

Thirdly, at Zima Homes we believe diversity and inclusivity is iterative and focus groups are a core part of our process. For our first project we conducted focus groups with over 700 people to check product-market fit and deeply understand the market's perception of different elements of the project and product and their concerns and views. This includes the community where the site is located. The grant funded research component of all our projects also includes 3rd party data collection/evaluations during construction, and post- occupancy.

Going forward, having gender and inclusive policies, and practices as well as ensuring community involvement, and having well designed focus groups on the projects and company will be key. 

From a governance perspective we have policies in place guiding the composition of the team, from the board level, to the workers on site. 

The Zima Homes business model aims to have two well-governed and licensed corporate bodies capable of attracting different forms of blended finance for sustainable growth and impact. The three combine a for-profit development company (D-reit & I-reit) with a non-profit think tank to ensure long term and sustainable scale with embedded, innovation, impact, and MEL systems (Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning). For financial sustainability, each single project (project site) will have its own SPV and closed capital structure with inbuilt phasing and exit structure bespoke to its contextual market, and the offtake strategy employed. In addition, grant funding will be raised separately to drive innovation and impact. This separation is key so as not to compromise project business cases, but also to keep driving towards higher efficiency, cost savings and sustainability alongside delivery. Zimas’ corporate strategy also includes the development of a diverse board, and the approval committee that is structured to always have innovation, impact as core approval metrics, alongside financial, real estate and construction.

Zima Homes will be structured to be a development company (D-REIT) which builds housing and sells them directly to individual buyers and to bulk buyers (institutional). Bulk buyers then offer long term end-user financing through mortgage, rent-to-own or cooperatives (SACCO) products to their members/subscribers.  Zima will also have an income arm (I- Reit) which holds the mother title for all apartments, manages the properties and collects management fees and rental for properties not yet sold to the market. Lastly, the Zima Homes impact fund intends to be non-profit that secures research and innovation grants to drive innovation, materials research, data collection and prototyping for scalable, replicable solutions to study past projects and the market, all for input into future projects and driving the agenda to deliver the regions first net -zero carbon home by 2040.

We have raised grant funding amounting to $132,000 for three grants, the first being a non-returnable grant to document three case studies on the pilot project focusing on inclusivity, sustainable design, and financial affordability. The second being a returnable grant for detailed market studies, product focus groups and standardization of the unit design and technology for replication. The third was a non-returnable grant to prototype solariskit, a flat-packed and innovative solar hot water heating system, on one of the blocks in the pilot project. These grants are underway and outputs are already well received. In addition to grant funding, we have raised $913, 000 in debt funding to construct our first project which is under way and through product sales of our homes, we have so far collected $297, 000 in sales revenues.