PODCAST | Nedbank’s strategy for sustainability means investing in small businesses

Nedbank’s strategy for sustainability investing in small businesses is the focus of this edition of Business Day Spotlight. 

Host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Maluta Netshaulu, senior lead green economy portfolio for corporate social investment at Nedbank.

Netshaulu outlines Nedbank’s push to invest in and grow small business, through a sustainability lens. 

Under his leadership, Nedbank CSI has invested more than R100m in projects that have created 300 enterprises and 2,000 jobs across SA.

Specialising in the area of impact investing, his unit finds small business in areas such as agriculture and water to allocate them capital of up to R500,000. He explains that smaller amounts often go a long way for many businesses in SA.

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This investment is used to find a “green” solution that can either help to make an operation more efficient or create new lines of revenue. 

An example of this is a spaza shop business in which Nedbank invested. Its founder had a way to start making soap from used oil coming from its fish-and-chips cooking process.

Through an ecosystem that resulted in other spaza shops and cooking operations selling on their used oil to her, the business has gone on to generate more than R1m a year. 

The operation had been in need of less than R200,000 from Nedbank.

Through the discussion, Netshaulu highlights Nedbank’s corporate social investment strategy, the bank’s criteria for investing, the types of businesses invested in, and various ways in which small businesses can use sustainability to improve their operations.  

Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production. 

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