Plantinum Madagascar sarl
Developing innovative solutions to energy poverty, malnutrition and nature protection
Overview
Plantinum Madagascar is a collaborative social venture incubated by GEXSI in 2007. The company pioneers successful social business models using under-utilised plant species to provide access to energy to remote communities, combat climate change and illegal logging.
The main area of operation is a 30,000 ha land strip, which Plantinum, in alliance with the local communities and Malagasy nature conservation authorities, has also designated as an extended environmental protection belt adjoining the National Park Ankarafantsika.
Approach
Since it was established, and working in close partnership local stakeholders, Plantinum has focused on cultivating the following species and developing goods and services linked to the respective value chains:
- Jatropha tree: locally produced substitute for diesel
- Paulownia tree: locally grown source of fuel wood and timber
- Moringa tree: high quality oils and high nutrient food additives for local and international markets
- Endemic and tropical trees: reforestation in degraded areas as part of the environmental protection belt
In addition, the company will generate carbon credits from reforestation and renewable energy fuel switch.
GEXSI’s involvement has seen both the Charity and GEXSI Capital Partners actively engaged with organisation.
The Charity has been instrumental in developing an overarching commercial model based on valorising under-utilised plant species. This contribution has involved a concentrated research phase on the efficacy of Jatropha as an alternative fuel source. The cultivation of Moringa was grounded on work by the charity to determine the tree’s proven nutritional benefits and its environmental suitability to growing in dry, degraded soils.
GEXSI Capital Partners has the overall management of the company, and the financing to facilitate the range of arboreal activities that are currently being undertaken within the protective environmental buffer zone. Moreover, GEXSI Capital Partners have been absolutely central in crafting the Plantinum’s long-term mission-driven business plans for each respective plant work stream.
Outlook
Plantinum Madagascar is striving to be a flagship social venture, which pilots innovative business solutions that address pressing local social and environmental issues, and which can be replicated in other parts of Madagascar and beyond.
The company has integrated four social and environmental impact categories, which mutually complement each other, into the business plans:
Access to energy: Production of a non-edible plant oil based on Jatropha as a substitute for fossil fuels powering homes, schools, local generators, bush taxis stoves and lamps
Biodiversity: Reforestation of the protective buffer zones as an environmental ‘cordon sanitaire’ around a protected primary forest, thereby protecting this unique landscape from bush fires, illegal logging and poaching.
Soil protection / rehabilitation of wastelands: Protecting the nearby rice paddies from soil erosion by reforesting the open wasteland immediately adjacent.
Climate change: Introduction of alternative fuel wood sources and plant oil charcoal-free cooking stoves use pure plant oil to combat illegal logging and promote the preservation of primary forest.
