AHK Southern Africa

Sustainable use of resources is becoming increasingly important in Southern Africa. Industries are competing with surrounding communities for increasingly scarce resources and are contributing to climate change. Industries therefore hold a responsibility to become more sustainable. The project’s target countries are implementing stricter legal instruments to facilitate a transition towards circular and sustainable economies. Southern African industries, who have traditionally been characterised by high resource, water and energy consumption, are in need to respond to this change. However, in particular SMEs lack the necessary skills and awareness of appropriate interventions.

The project "Stimulating Sustainable Resource Use in Industry in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana" therefore aimed to demonstrate the benefits of modern environmental technology through replicable and scalable measures in industry, and to build knowledge regarding its application. This should have stimulated investments in resource efficiency measures in industry and thus increase the demand and application of environmental technology.

The focus of the project was on efficient water use and waste water treatment, efficient use of raw materials, waste prevention and waste re-use in industry. Whereby the focus was on the following sectors:

• Agro-processing / food industry
• Mining
• Textile industry, and
• Automotive industry

The project was divided into three consecutive phases,

1. Identification: identification of viable interventions, mobilisation of industry stakeholders in the target countries
2. Design: development of resource and water efficiency projects, skills and knowledge building
3. Consolidation: presentation of the developed projects in the target countries and Germany, networking / facilitation of business contacts.

Various formats and instruments were used in the phases: market analyses, innovation labs, counselling and mentoring of participants, project development, information events (face-to-face and/or webinars), publications of results, etc.

Of particular importance in the project was the transfer of knowledge and know-how. The knowledge brought into the project and generated should be made accessible to as many stakeholders as possible.

At the end of the project, the participating companies had project dossiers, implementation knowledge and contacts to technology providers and financing institutions - thus the possibility to successfully implement actual measures in the fields of action. In this way, a direct contribution is made to sustainable economic development and resource conservation in the target countries.