IKEA Social Entrepreneurship BV and Saahas Zero Waste have come together with a deep driving desire to address the corrosive inequality within our society.
The investment of 1.1 million Euros from IKEA Social Entrepreneurship will be used to set up 3 plastic recovery facilities for 3 micro-entrepreneurs in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
We are happy to announce that our two organisations, IKEA Social Entrepreneurship BV and Saahas Zero Waste, have come together with a deep driving desire to address the corrosive inequality within our society.
Our starting point is a social inclusion programme for the informal sector working with waste. This includes the communities of recyclers, waste aggregators, scrap dealers, and waste pickers. Collectively, this community has traditionally, and even today, manages more than 90% of the country’s waste.
Social inclusion will be addressed through a two-year intensive incubation programme for micro-entrepreneurs working with waste. The objective of this programme is to demonstrate an approach where micro-entrepreneurs in the informal sector gain access to financial and managerial support to build a fully formal and sustainable business.
The investment of 1.1 million Euros from IKEA Social Entrepreneurship will be used to set up three plastic recovery facilities for three micro-entrepreneurs in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Each entrepreneur will now have access to appropriate technology in the form of machinery and data management tools for tracking and tracing waste.
They will also be closely supported in their daily business operations by Saahas Zero Waste, an India-based partner of IKEA Social Entrepreneurship.
The programme aims to demonstrate a framework that mainstreams the informal sector. Access to minimum wages, social security, and safe working conditions will remain at the core of this framework.
This will be executed through a ground-level impact team that will not only develop business plans for micro-entrepreneurs but also support them through their daily operational challenges.
Along with the government, we need industry and civil society to step up and clean up the channels through which waste flows. This pilot project seeks to deliver a roadmap for micro-entrepreneurs to transition into delivering holistic and formal waste management solutions.
The story of social inclusion
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