In December 2023, consulting firm released an interesting piece of research entitled the Trialogue Business in Society Handbook which unpacked Corporate Social Investment Trends in the country. One of the high-level figures that catches the eye is that Corporate Social Investment (CSI) spend rose to R11.8bn in 2023 compared to R10.9bn in 2022.
There is no question that despite very challenging operating conditions, corporate South Africa has come to the party in terms of investment in enhancing the lives of ordinary citizens.
Despite this massive investment from corporate South Africa, we still remain one of the most unequal societies in the world and this leaves us with many challenges to fulfil to respond to in 2024.
As an Impact Investment consultancy, we have narrowed our focus into 3 verticals where we will be actively seeking partnerships:
- Clean energy
- Water
- Healthcare
Clean / Solar Energy:
Loadshedding has had a debilitating impact on the South African economy over the last decade and with loadshedding hitting stages 5 and 6 (and some might even argue Stage 8) last year, this has a direct impact on the ability of businesses to generate profits.
According to Energy Monitor there was some good news as rooftop solar exploded in 2023:
“South African energy expert Anton Eberhard has crunched data released by Eskom to find that South Africa’s installed rooftop solar PV capacity increased from 983MW in March 2022 to 4,412MW in June 2023”
While we are excited by the rapid growth of rooftop solar in 2023 and expect this trend to grow, for us it is critically important that this tool is not limited to those with the financial means to install systems.
In 2023, our partnership with Solana Energy saw us democratizing access to solar by doing installations for a variety of schools, orphanages and social impact initiatives by deploying ESD / SED funding.
The Solana Energy Training academy continues to expand its offering and certifications and we look forward to partnering on further projects in 2024.
Lastly, we are cognizant of the global trend toward Electric Vehicles and are exploring an exciting partnership in this space.
Water:
Our delayed response to the energy crisis has seen loadshedding weigh on our economy for over a decade. We do not have a decade to respond to the water infrastructure crisis.
There have been several high-profile reports of communities being impacted by lack of access to clean water and we expect this trend to continue into 2024 unless there is a significant investment in water infrastructure.
Incidents include the closing of beaches in KZN, communities falling ill from the likes of Cholera, diarrhea and hepatitis and more recently we have seen instances of “water-shedding” as legacy infrastructure fails which is directly impacting farms, hospitals and clinics.
With South Africa being a water scarce country, we need to find solutions which will capture, clean and recycle water to ensure maximum efficiency. This is one of the reasons we are excited about our partnership with Kaackai and their innovative technology.
We recently highlighted in an opinion piece for Business Day that we needed to take the learnings from loadshedding and use this to help us identify systems, tools and products which would allow us to capture as much water as possible at both a residential as well as commercial and industrial sites.
While this will not be a replacement for large scale infrastructure projects, the explosion in rooftop solar for residential units has highlighted the value of smaller, modular solutions as a building block in the infrastructure mix.
Healthcare:
We expect our partnerships in the energy and water sectors to contribute toward the overall health and well-being of the communities we work in.
Further to this, we are able to integrate a combination of Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD), Socio-Economic Development (SED), Corporate Social Investment (CSI) and the Youth Employment Service (YES) B-BBEE incentive into our initiatives to help grow skills and capacity in energy, water and healthcare.
We have enjoyed a successful 2-year project with the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) where YES youth have been given valuable 12-month work experience in the Health Science faculty – adding valuable skills to the sector.
Further to this, we are excited by our ongoing partnership with the team from Blossom Care Solutions who are partnering with corporates to tackle Period Poverty in South Africa. This remains one of the highest impact social projects we work on and we are excited to identify corporate partners to work with in 2024.
While it is clear that South Africa faces many challenges in 2024, we are excited by the solutions that we are able to deliver and look forward to engaging with clients and stakeholders to enhance the quality of life for communities while assisting corporates achieve their sustainability goals.
