Shell Foundation - Enterprise solutions to poverty

Shell Foundation is an independent charity, established in 2000 with an endowment of $250 million from Shell. It aims to find and develop sustainable solutions to poverty, energy and environment-related problems.

Putting Africa’s entrepreneurs first

In 2004, the Foundation gave a small Ugandan dried fruit company seed-capital for computers and training, and helped it get financing from a local bank to build a new factory. Two years on, hundreds of jobs have been created and the company is selling its fruit in more than 700 supermarket stores in the UK.

The Foundation is investing more than $50 million to help other African entrepreneurs creating both financial returns and much needed jobs.

This is an example of the Foundation’s ‘enterprise’- based approach – developing solutions that can quickly finance themselves and be easily copied by others so they spread.

The Foundation applies this approach because it thinks too many programmes in the developing world are reliant on the next aid cheque, which often does not arrive. So, unlike most corporate foundations, it does not hand out cheques to good causes. Instead, it acts like an investor, looking for solutions that can deliver both financial and social returns.

If organisations struggle to become selffinancing, the Foundation helps by providing business know-how, discipline and skills training. This is delivered by business experts including, sometimes, Shell company staff.

Traffic congestion and pollution

The Foundation is working to reduce the traffic congestion and pollution plaguing mega-cities such as Istanbul, Hanoi and Shanghai. In Mexico City, it helped implement Metrobus – an innovative route served by 97 high-capacity buses. Metrobus carried its 100 millionth passenger after only 18 months in operation. It replaced 350 smaller buses, cut journey times in half andreduced pollution.

Killer in the kitchen

More than half the world’s population still cooks on wood, dung and other biomass. The resulting smoke kills an estimated 1.6 million people a year, making it the fourth largest cause of death in the developing world. The Foundation is applying commercial approaches to tackling the problem. It hopes to supply 20 million cooking stoves that reduce dangerous fumes and use less fuel in the next five years.

Going organic

By providing organic fertilizers and business support, the Foundation is proving that developing world cotton farmers can move from pesticide-intensive production to organic production despite a daunting three-to-five-year transition process. Going organic helps improve soil fertility and water retention and reduces pollution. It also guarantees farmers a fair price for their produce. One farmer, who has made the transition, said: “The soil is improving, the environment is better and, through crop rotation, we are now getting healthier food for our consumption and our customers.”In India, more than 900 farmers have gained organic certification with help from the programme. Several thousand acres of organic crops are under production and the model is expanding rapidly

Related links

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Shell Foundation’s Core Lines of Business