UNILEVER TO HELP CREATE WEALTH FROM PLASTICS WASTE

Funding to Help Social Enterprise Wecyclers Create Jobs and Keep the Environment Cleaner

Unilever Nigeria and Bridges Outcomes Partnerships have agreed a $2 million US partnership to help social enterprise Wecyclers expand plastic waste collection in Nigeria.

This partnership, set up through an innovative “Development Impact Bond” structured by French investment bank Societe Generale, will allow Wecyclers to create hundreds of jobs scaling up operations that take plastics waste out the environment and turn it into raw material for industry.

Unilever Nigeria and Wecyclers have been working together since 2014 as part of Unilever’s ‘waste to wealth’ campaign, which helps local organisations work out how to create value and jobs from the reduction, collection, recycling, and reusing of plastic waste.

Under this partnership, seed funding from a Unilever, UK Government and EY joint project called TRANSFORM helped Wecyclers expand their successful franchise and collection model.  However, as an entrepreneurial social enterprise, Wecyclers lacked access to the long-term funding needed to build on that progress and significantly scale up this model.

This unique Development Impact Bond provides a solution to that challenge. It includes social, environmental, and financial targets, which will see Wecyclers collect more than 30,000 tonnes of plastic waste over the next five years, create over 700 jobs in recycling franchises across Nigeria, and improve the incomes of thousands of waste sorters.

“This funding is a major step forward for us in our work to ensure plastics waste stays out the Nigerian environment” said Mr. Carl Cruz, Unilever Nigeria Managing Director, adding “It shows there is wealth to be made from creating jobs tackling plastics waste, it cleans up the Nigerian environment and it develops a more sustainable financing model for groups like Wecyclers.”

Wale Adebiyi, the Managing Director, of Wecyclers added “We started with one bicycle and a dream, and through hard work and entrepreneurship we have built a scalable model that, thanks to this Development Impact Bond, will create hundreds of jobs, and improve the income of thousands of sorters, who will earn 25% more than they do today.”

All the partners involved hope this experience in Nigeria will inspire the further development and use of such Bonds globally to finance organisations tackling similar challenges.

About Unilever:

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Beauty & Wellbeing, Personal Care, Home Care, Nutrition and Ice Cream products, with sales in over 190 countries and products used by 3.4 billion people every day.  Unilever Nigeria is a locally listed business that has been operating for 100 years selling brands such as Knorr, Vaseline and Closeup.  For more information about Unilever and our brands, please visit www.unilever.com. 

About Wecyclers:

Wecyclers is a for-profit social enterprise that promotes environmental sustainability, socioeconomic development, and community health by providing convenient recycling services in densely populated urban neighbourhoods. Wecyclers addresses the challenge of urban waste, gives households a chance to generate value from their waste and provides a reliable supply of raw material to the local recycling industry.

For more information about the Wecyclers, visit its website at www.wecyclers.com

About Bridges Outcomes Partnerships

Bridges Outcomes Partnerships is a not-for-profit social enterprise. It specialises in supporting impact-driven organisations to design and deliver outcomes-based programmes that help radically improve human services and environmental initiatives, enabling better outcomes for people and the planet, and value for society. To date, it has supported more than 60 of these programmes globally. BOP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bridges Fund Management, a specialist sustainable and impact investor.