In the arid areas of Kenya's West Pokot County, beekeepers collect honey from buzzing hives set among fragrant acacia trees, native to the region.
The trees, which were conserved with the help of social enterprise and honey wholesaler Agrisafe Kenya, are key to the harvest. They produce nectar-rich flowers, making the hives more productive, while also keeping the soil healthy and landscape resilient. This helps boost incomes in Kenya’s West Pokot, where drought and erratic rainfall linked to a changing climate has made traditional jobs, like farming, more challenging.
“We encourage indigenous tree-planting and tree-growing where possible,” says Ronald Ndiku, Agrisafe’s founder. “We can see that when land gets restored back to health, we buy more honey from beekeepers and the social impact is felt more.”
Ndiku is among the participants of Restoration Factory, an incubation programme that helps entrepreneurs develop climate-resilient businesses that support local communities and help restore and preserve landscapes. Launched in 2021, the Restoration Factory is a collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Bridge for Billions, with support from Partnerships for Forests. The programme offers a six-month curriculum that blends online content with in-person mentorship, guiding entrepreneurs through market differentiation and business planning.
Through the support for environmental entrepreneurs, the Restoration Factory also inspires local action by helping communities overcome threats from two intertwined crises: climate change and nature loss. In many parts of Africa, changing weather patterns are bringing both droughts and floods, upending traditional sectors, like agriculture, that are major employers.
That is emblematic of a global problem. Up to 40 per cent of the world’s land is degraded, affecting more than 3 billion people. Land degradation poses major risks to food systems; due in part to pollinator loss, food production could fall 12 per cent by 2040, driving up prices by 30 per cent.
Sustainable land management and agricultural practices can prevent and reduce land degradation, while reviving landscapes—including by restoring forests, rewetting marshes, and reviving grasslands—can further help counter degradation trends. But experts say that to be effective, landscape restoration projects must provide economic benefits to local communities and be able to secure investments.
This is where entrepreneurship can play a pivotal role, introducing scalable market-based solutions, say experts.
“Nature-based solutions that go hand-in-hand with job creation demonstrate the vast opportunity for entrepreneurship to not only restore ecosystems but also drive economic growth,” says Mirey Atallah, Chief of UNEP’s Climate Adaptation and Resilience Branch. “Startups that power innovation can be scaled up in a way that is longlasting and connects local benefits and global interests for the environment.”
Despite their drive and potential, environmental entrepreneurs often face challenges, such as limited access to credit, markets and strategic guidance. The Restoration Factory by design helps entrepreneurs overcome these barriers. Beyond the personalized mentorship, all participating entrepreneurs gain access to an online platform that guides them through business development learning modules, opportunities to pitch their businesses to potential investors, and access to small grants to fund further development.
In 2022, the programme in Kenya selected 47 entrepreneurs to participate. This year, 31 entrepreneurs will graduate from the programme in Tanzania, and four new cohorts will begin in Bangladesh, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
Kenyan essential oils brand Asili Natural Oils was among those startups. Since participating in the Restoration Factory in 2022, it has increased the resiliency of its herbs and trees to climate change by using more sustainable production methods, says founder Job Mumia. That has helped sales jump 130 per cent, while Mumia has added two permanent employees to his team.
“My business has really developed,” says Mumia. “I can confidently say the Restoration Factory helped us move from disorder to professionalism, where I can employ new staff, generate revenue, and ensure our environment doesn’t degrade and is protected.”
The Restoration Factory aims to train more than 200 entrepreneurs by the end of 2025, with the financial contribution from a diverse group of partners. Belgium, Norway and the Philippines are also supporting that goal through contributions to the UNEP Climate Fund.
Ndiku, the founder of Agrisafe, has been passing on what he’s learned through the Restoration Factory to beekeepers across Kenya. Along with boosting honey yields, the planting of acacia trees in adequate habitats has helped crops to thrive as well, he says.
Ndiku aspires to double his volume of traded honey this year and improve connections to international markets.
That is indicative of the larger economic opportunities that could come from developing more sustainable business models, says Atallah.
“Too often, restoring land and adapting to climate change are viewed as expenses,” says Atallah. “But, in reality, they can create a host of economic opportunities than can lead to a more prosperous future.”
The Sectoral Solution to the climate crisis
UNEP is at the forefront of supporting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global temperature rise well below 2°C, and aiming for 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels. To do this, UNEP has developed the Sectoral Solution, a roadmap to reducing emissions across sectors in line with the Paris Agreement commitments and in pursuit of climate stability. The six sectors identified are: energy; industry; agriculture and food; forests and land use; transport; and buildings and cities.
This story was made possible by flexible contributions from Member States and other partners to the Environment Fund and UNEP Climate Fund. These funds enable agile, innovative solutions to climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. Learn how to support UNEP to invest in people and planet.
