CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
The Agricultural Innovator
Redefining the parameters of meaningful social investment
When it comes to corporate social responsibility, one of the biggest challenges we face is linked to the history of development aid in Africa.
“The way in which companies have engaged with the continent in the past has been relatively traditional, helping to build water wells or support volunteer programmes, for example. These things are of course fantastic, but it is much more meaningful to bring a business lens to CSR, looking at how knowledge, skills and support can be imparted in a more sustainable manner.
“The perception of how these relationships work, both in the eyes of the donor and receiver, tends to be philanthropic and transactional – what we’re trying to do is change this perception and introduce a more lasting, commercial approach.”
For Lauren Berry, corporate social responsibility can be both a challenging and rewarding sector to work in.
Highly experienced in the field, she previously worked on sustainability and human rights issues for Chevron, Ann Taylor, the Earth Institute and the Fund for Peace, now standing as the Director of Social Performance at Kosmos Energy – an independent deepwater oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in Dallas, Texas in the United States.
“I’ve been here for six years,” she reveals. “I came because of the culture. I wanted to see the day to day impact of my work, and Kosmos provided this – working at an agile company you can make a decision one day and implement a programme 24 hours later.”
During this time, Berry has helped to power a crucial shift at Kosmos, the company having made the decision to tailor its social investment efforts in line with local contexts during a milestone period of reflection.
She explains: “As we approached the 10-year anniversary of the discovery of our assets in the Jubilee Field in Ghana, we were asking ourselves what we could do in terms of social investment that would give back to the region in an impactful way.
“What was a bold question in the beginning quickly led us to thinking about Ghana’s future and how entrepreneurship could be used as an
engine to fuel national growth.”
The obvious vehicle for this was agriculture. Accounting for approximately 34 percent of total employment across the country (according to the World Bank’s figures for 2018), it is equally an industry renowned as being relatively underdeveloped and ripe for modernised, innovative ideas.
“This is where our CSR efforts really kicked on,” Berry adds. “We launched the Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) and have been enabling entrepreneurs to turn their ideas into business models, offering a mixture of skills training, support and even seed funding to the most promising companies.
“The idea is to promote Ghanaian people as local business leaders. Effective CSR is all about listening and understanding. If more companies were to approach it in this way, not only would they be more successful, but Africa would benefit from more sustainable development prospects.”
Showcasing success
A prime example of such a promising startup that has successfully come through the KIC programme is TROTRO Tractor Limited (TTL).
An agricultural technology company that is improving global food and income security by building a network of tractor owners that farmers are able to utilise via SMS, TTL has already garnered a lot of attention.
“We refer to them as the Uber for tractors,” Berry adds. “The interesting thing about these guys is that they all had their own individual ambitions and interests in agriculture when they came into the programme, but when the founders met they hit it off.
“We’re particularly proud of them, not only in the way they have excelled, but equally because of their personal passion of giving back to Ghana and inspiring other entrepreneurs to get involved. It’s great when successful
businesspeople come through our programme and help mentor others – we take pride in building this community that is able to lean on itself from within.”
As our conversation moves on from TTL, Berry is quick to point to a second startup that the Kosmos team is excited to be supporting – Profish.
“Part of last year’s cohort, Profish is a startup that’s essentially trying to connect fishermen and their fish stock with processors, retailers and restaurants to improve the supply chain, ensuring that deliveries are always fresh,” she continues. “The plan is to improve logistical efficiency while simultaneously decreasing cost.”
With four participants of KIC’s AgriTech Challenge having come together to fine-tune the idea, the Profish team leveraged their different skills spanning agriculture, mobile web development, entrepreneurialism and shipping and ports to create what was a similarly promising, impactful business model.
“They received $50,000 in seed funding from Kosmos Energy,” Berry adds, “and have become one of the most successful companies we’ve helped. Within just five months, for example, they were already generating revenues equivalent to this sum.”
Two ambitious enterprises in their own right, both upholding Kosmos Energy’s vision of creating meaningful, impactful economic contributions, the pair account for just a fraction of KIC’s work.
“Currently, we’re directly supporting 14 enterprises, and that’s without mentioning the mentoring, skills training and other efforts that we offer to budding entrepreneurs outside the programme,” Berry adds.
For Africa
With numerous success stories to call upon, Berry is optimistic about Kosmos Energy and KIC’s role to play moving forward, confident that its work will continue to develop over the coming years.
“I’d like to think that we’ve arrived,” she states.
“Like any industry, there are of course challenges that we still have to overcome – there’s a pushback on perceptions in terms of what CSR engagement should look like, and it can be hard to get your head up above the noise and say we’re doing things differently with the plethora of entrepreneurship programmes on offer.
“That said, we’re optimistic about the fact that we’re looking through a commercial lens. The potential that it brings from a sustainability standpoint is clear to see.”
Off the back of its initial successes, the company has begun expanding its CSR initiatives outside of Ghana, helping startups and entrepreneurs in more remote regions such as Mauritania. Further, back in Accra, the business is in the process of remodelling a space that will become KIC’s physical home – a first for the initiative.
“I’m really excited for this to get up and running,” Berry states, eluding to the future of the programme.
“In the past, we’ve worked with partners to incubate the most promising companies, but through this we’ll be able to bring all of our entrepreneurs under one roof and extend the sense of fellowship and community that we’ve created.
“It’s great to know that the centre will be run in Africa, for Africans, by Africans, serving as a hub of continuous learning.”