Our first investment for the Kenyan Fund: BURN Manufacturing!
Our first investment for the Kenyan Fund: BURN Manufacturing!
We are very proud to announce today that Yunus Social Business has invested in Burn Manufacturing, to facilitate the expansion of BURN’s efficient cooking stoves across East Africa.
This is our first investment in Kenya, since the fund was launched by Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus last year. The fund aims to invest and support social businesses in Kenya with the primary goal of achieving social impact in a financially sustainable way.
The investee business, BURN Manufacturing is a clean cookstoves business based in Nairobi committed to designing and building efficient stoves. Their goal is to provide clean-burning wood and charcoal stoves that reduce pollution and deforestation for the 2 billion people who will inhabit sub-Saharan Africa by 2050.
“Many households rely upon traditional cookstoves or open flames for cooking and heating,” said Bharat Doshi one of the founding partners of Yunus Social Business Kenya. “These methods are cost-intensive, create toxic exhausts, and contribute to deforestation. That’s why we are delighted to provide support for a business that offers a local solution to a global problem. BURN manufactures cookstoves in Nairobi that use 60% less charcoal or firewood and significantly reduce carbon emissions as well as saving money for Kenyan families.”
To date, BURN has sold over 643,112 stoves saving each family an average of Ksh15,000 a year. Over 2.6 million tons of wood has been saved from being burned due to the stoves.
BURN’s Founder and CEO Peter Scott said “we are delighted to be partnering with YSB. Not only has it provided critical working capital for raw material purchases, but it's also connected us to an amazing network of local investors and distributors. BURN is poised to double sales and production over the next 3 months and this would not have been possible without YSB funds.”
Saskia Bruysten, CEO of Yunus Social Business said, “BURN is a fantastic first investment for YSB Kenya as they are truly an impact-first business, covering the spectrum of not only social but environmental and economic impact. The social business is committed to keeping their manufacturing within Kenya in their state-of-the-art factory and are encouraging female empowerment as all jobs are open to both men and women at all levels – just over half of its workforce are women.”
What are the Yunus Social Business team listening to? We list our favourite podcasts.
Podcasts are a fantastic way to entertain and educate yourself on the latest news and trends in the sector. We asked our team for their recommendations…
Closing the gap between business and social impact
Why do we need a social sector? Shouldn’t businesses create economic opportunities and governments ensure a just distribution of these opportunities and set incentives and boundaries such that the environment is protected?
Our Week In Davos
The first exciting announcement for us this year at Davos was the release of UBS’s World Economic Forum white paper “5 ways wealth managers can support the UN Sustainable Development Goals: our lessons from 2017” documenting innovative solutions to solving inequality.
