Expanding the KenGen collaboration

Last Friday, the customers visiting Kenya and Uganda met Samson Kimani, who is Assistant Managing Director for Kenya’s largest energy company KenGen. This company produces about 80% of Kenya’s electricity. Director Kimani is a very important person in the Kenyan business community and he has many important connections.

Already in 2006, a collaboration was initiated between Better Globe Forestry and KenGen. In the first phase, Better Globe got access to 5,000 hectares of land around the Kiambere lake to plant trees. The purpose was to help KenGen reduce the soil erosion that previously swept large amounts of soil into the lake during the rainy periods. It was a big problem for them as it has repeatedly damaged the turbines in their hydropower plant. Now, over 10 years later, it is clear that it has been a very positive collaboration for all parties involved.

During the last few years, we have also collaborated with KenGen’s Foundation “KenGen Foundation” on other projects such as “Green Initiative Challenge”. It is a project with a larger number of collaborators, including Lafarge, one of the world’s largest producers of cement. You can read more about this particular collaboration here:

• Lafarge – “Bamburi Cement, Better Globe Forestry and KenGen Foundation Launch Green Initiative Challenge“
• KenGen – “Green Initiative Challenge” (all articles with the label Better Globe on KenGen’s site)
• The Star (daily newspaper) – “The Green Initiative Challenge“

Now the collaboration is expanding further and Better Globe has access to more land in Kamburu, another area near the lake. A laboratory is now being designed for the processing and cloning of trees, and a sawmill for processing wood from the Mukau trees will also be built. It is a great location, not least because of the proximity to the lake and, above all, the national electricity grid. There will also be a possibility to plant some trees in the area.

In addition, this makes it possible for us to engage more farmers to enter into agreements with Better Globe to plant African Mahogany on their lands. Within a time-frame of 5 years we want to connect an additional 30,000 farmers, in addition to the 2500 who have agreements with Better Globe today

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