A collaborative approach
Strategies for success
Sustainable Seas Trust’s (SST) drive towards realising short- to medium-term goals is key to realising sustainable and meaningful long-term outcomes. We ensure policies, legislation, institutions, and behaviours are aligned with sustainable waste management principles. Our strategies support sustainable waste management in partner communities across Africa.
Support and partner
Partner with multilateral and regional bodies to assist with good governance, advocate for sustainable waste management approaches, and support governments at all levels to champion sustainable waste management principles.
Collaborate and engage
Work with businesses to transform their waste generation practices, support local recycling initiatives, and engage with local communities to identify opportunities for income generation through recycling.
Educate and inspire
Foster change in attitude and behaviour of all people for responsible consumption and a sustainable waste economy.
How we’re making an impact
Take an in depth look at our impact portfolios
We’ve developed 4 powerful impact portfolios to operationalise our interventions, which we underpin with 2 portfolios for internal governance.
Research, development and monitoring
Knowledge is the key to taking action
Well-structured, high-quality research programmes generate comprehensive understanding of the challenges impacting sustainable waste management in identified coastal communities. Our stakeholders are key, and through our African Network Map, we’re able to identify potential partnership opportunities for collaborative development towards sustainable waste management.
We also design all our interventions when it comes to training, skills transfer, capacity building, community upliftment and enterprise development. This includes direct strategic guidance and advice across the packaging value chain, on a national and regional level, to mitigate and eliminate waste in the environment and support sustainable waste management. Informed impact reporting gives us the tools we need to understand whether our interventions are effective and have had the desired impact.
Education and capacity building
Changing behavior through learning
To facilitate meaningful change, we need to start from the ground up.
We design and develop appropriate and relevant high-quality educational resources for implementation, at scale, across Africa to support sustainable development and waste management across the packaging value chain. Our unique e-learning platform, the African Waste Academy, is the first of its kind on the continent. It’s an active platform for collaboration, resource and knowledge sharing, capacity building and support for mitigating marine pollution challenges across Africa.
Community upliftment and enterprise development
Upskilling, inspiring and empowering
We work collaboratively with communities to upskill and empower identified SMMEs and informal collectors operating in the recycling and waste sector, equipping local authorities to support sustainable waste management behaviour in their communities, and supporting local businesses in the packaging value chain to reduce waste generation.
In addition, we capacitate local communities to value and care for the ocean through the development of a deep love and appreciation for the ocean. In this way, we work to support coastal communities to mitigate the impact of marine pollution while working with them to create sustainable income-generating opportunities for themselves.
Strategic stakeholder engagement
Partnering for Africa’s future
We provide an enriching and collaborative membership experience with tools like the African Network Map, an interactive mapping platform that connects waste research and management role-players across the different sectors of the packaging value chain. We have also initiated an integrated community clean-up programme in South Africa (initially launched in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa) called Operation Clean Spot. This initiative allows us to gather measurable results and is a programme that will help develop design principles for a cohesive approach towards waste management across stakeholder groups in the packaging value chain. Our aim is that these principles can, in partnership with others, be replicated and scaled across Africa.
Business development and strategy
The blue economy starts with all of us
To do the work, we need a working and stable financial strategy that is secure and diversified. The key to success for any charitable trust or NGO is existing support as well as unlocking additional financial growth through grants, donations, sponsorships, and other philanthropic contributions that will enable us to achieve the goals we’ve set out to do.
We have a clear business development strategy when it comes to our
top priorities and goals so that we can organise our limited resources and budgets well, strengthen our operations and processes, and establish a clear pathway to success. We save time, money and make the most of our resources by clearly defining what we want to focus on, achieve and what our short-term to long-term goals are as an organisation. With a clear vision, more efficient processes and realistic expectations, improved results are achievable with this strategic plan in place.
Legal and risk management
We’re always above board
We’re not just about mitigating waste, we’re about mitigating risk. Transparency is key as well as having the right team in place to identify, evaluate, prioritise and address risks, which is critical for our survival. SST’s Legal and Risk Management portfolio is responsible for managing legal, political, economic and social risk.
SST’s team provides sound legal advice upholding our values as a good and fair employer and ensures appropriate employee relations, contract management, and that we remain compliant to legal standards and requirements of the countries we operate within. This is complemented by effective structuring and implementation of processes related to sound financial governance and compliance, Human Resources, BBBEE and Facilities Management to meet operational needs.
Reach out and let’s enable the blue economy together.
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