Annual Impact Report — 2025/2026
Climate action begins with informed people
A year of accreditation, training delivery and groundwork. This report sets out what WasteVest Technologies Limited built, who we reached, and what comes next.
Annual Impact Report — 2025/2026
A year of accreditation, training delivery and groundwork. This report sets out what WasteVest Technologies Limited built, who we reached, and what comes next.
Olabode Afurewaju, Founder & Managing Director
This has been a year of learning, growth and laying foundations. WasteVest is still early, and we have stayed close to one thing: helping people take climate action, and making sustainable waste management work in the places we live.
The milestone I am proudest of is becoming an Accredited Carbon Literacy Training Organisation through The Carbon Literacy Project. Accreditation means the climate education we deliver in Nigeria carries international recognition, and it lets us hold ourselves to a standard we did not set alone.
Accreditation came through this year, and delivery of the accredited course begins in the period ahead. What we did deliver was groundwork: across three fellowship cohorts we ran sessions on community resilience and climate adaptation, reaching 77 fellows.
We used those rooms to introduce Carbon Literacy and test appetite for it. The interest we met there is the reason we are confident about what comes next, and it told us which sectors to build the course out for first.
We also strengthened how we run. Programmes delivered by the Lagos Business School Sustainability Centre, LEAP Africa, ACT Foundation and the Nigeria Youth Futures Fund improved our leadership, our governance and our ability to design programmes that hold up.
And we began to grow the team, because the work being asked of us has outgrown what one person can carry.
Thank you to every partner, volunteer, mentor and supporter who has believed in this. We are building a cleaner, more resilient future, and we are building it together.
Olabode AfurewajuFounder & Managing Director
Three fellowship cohorts, delivered with partner organisations across Nigeria. Sessions covered community resilience and climate adaptation — practical ground for people already working in peacebuilding, green jobs and community development.
| Cohort | Delivered with | Fellows |
|---|---|---|
| Peace Fellows | Peace Education and Practice Network (PEPNET) | 30 |
| Green Fellows | DO Take Action | 27 |
| She Leads Green Jobs | The Ebaidebheki Initiative | 20 |
| Total fellows reached | Three cohorts, three delivery partners | 77 |
The She Leads Green Jobs cohort enrolled 20 fellows, of whom 11 participated actively through to completion. We track enrolment and active participation separately, because the gap between the two is where our programme design gets better.
To be clear about what these sessions were. They were not the accredited Carbon Literacy course. Our accreditation was secured during this reporting period and delivery of the certified course begins in the period ahead. We introduced Carbon Literacy inside these sessions to build interest and prepare the ground for it. No Carbon Literacy certifications have been issued yet.
Mission, vision and the ground we work on.
WasteVest Technologies Limited is a Nigerian climate and circular economy enterprise. We work to reduce plastic pollution, promote climate literacy, and strengthen sustainable waste management through education, technology and community partnerships.
Solving environmental problems takes three things together: informed people, systems that work, and partners willing to act. We build for all three.
To equip 1,000,000 businesses, workforce professionals and communities with Carbon Literacy, enable the recovery of 1,000,000 tonnes of recyclable materials, and create sustainable waste collection systems that deliver environmental and economic value by 2030.
An Africa where climate-conscious individuals, businesses and circular innovation create thriving communities.
Five areas of work, one aim: make climate action practical enough to act on.
Internationally recognised Carbon Literacy training that helps individuals and organisations cut emissions and act on climate.
Recycling, waste segregation and resource recovery, advanced through education and innovation.
Supporting responsible collection and better environmental practice inside communities.
Working with schools, youth groups, businesses and community organisations to turn awareness into action.
Technology that improves waste collection, recycling systems and environmental data.
Resilience and adaptation sessions with our three cohorts, 2025/2026.
Our training runs in person wherever it can. Fellows work through the material together and leave with something they can apply where they already work — in a community, a peacebuilding programme or a green jobs pathway.
Our accreditation is in place and the certified course opens for delivery in the period ahead. Carbon Literacy is a day of learning that ends in a commitment: participants leave certified, and with a plan for the emissions they can actually influence.
The programme is open to workplaces, fellowship cohorts, community groups and individuals, and is delivered across five sectors: oil and gas, workplace, transportation, waste management, and agriculture and AFOLU. Sessions run online and in person.
If you run a team, a cohort or a community group and want your people carbon literate, we are taking bookings for the first cohorts now.
Accreditation, delivery, platform development and the conversations we convened.
WasteVest became an Accredited Carbon Literacy Training Organisation through The Carbon Literacy Project. This is the year's central milestone: it allows us to deliver globally recognised climate education tailored to the African context. With accreditation secured, we built out Carbon Literacy for the Workplace across five sectors — oil and gas, workplace, transportation, waste management, and agriculture and AFOLU — and began promoting the course. Delivery of the certified programme starts in the period ahead.
We continued developing RouteBeacon, our WhatsApp-first waste collection and rewards platform. Building on WhatsApp is a deliberate choice: it meets residents and collectors on the channel they already use daily, rather than asking them to adopt something new.
We publish The Circular Brief, a newsletter surfacing circular economy opportunities and work in progress, with a companion podcast series of conversations with sustainability and ESG practitioners. The aim across the series is to draw a shared resolution from our guests and carry it forward as a joint project.
Our delivery this year was on community resilience and climate adaptation, run with three fellowship cohorts. Alongside it we organised and supported climate awareness initiatives that brought young people, professionals and community members into conversations on climate change, carbon emissions, circular economy, responsible consumption and sustainable waste management.
Through the year we strengthened operational and leadership capacity through programmes supported by ACT Foundation, the Lagos Business School Sustainability Centre, LEAP Africa and the Nigeria Youth Futures Fund.
Convenings, summits and the rooms where policy gets argued.
Training is where we teach. Convenings are where we listen, and where a small enterprise gets to stand alongside the agencies and networks setting the terms.
This year we took part in the Nigeria Environmental Summit (NESt 2026), convened under the theme of driving climate action and environmental governance, and in the Nigeria Youth Summit hosted by the National Council on Climate Change. Both put us in front of regulators, private sector operators and youth networks whose work touches ours directly, and both fed back into how we pitch, partner and design.
Rest, and what we noticed while resting.
Building an early-stage enterprise is relentless, and burning out the team would be the least sustainable thing we could do. So we stopped, briefly.
Time away from the desk this year included a short trip to Cotonou. What stayed with us was not the coastline. It was the bins.
Public receptacles on swept pavements. Waste contained rather than scattered. An ordinary standard of tidiness, maintained without ceremony, on streets no wealthier than the ones we work on. It is a useful thing to see up close, because it settles an argument we hear often — that what we are trying to build in Abuja is unrealistic. It is already normal a few hundred kilometres down this coast, held up by systems and habits someone had to put there.
We came back with that. Rest is part of how we keep building.
My friend Peri Bilkisu and I made a pact: plant a tree in every state we visit. Not a campaign and not a programme. A rule between two people.
We kept it here in Uyo, in the ground at our host’s house — a Queen of the Night, planted before we left.
We have also already broken it. I was in Yola recently and, for no good reason at all, forgot. Billy was in Lagos and did exactly the same. So the two people who started the pact have both failed the pact, which is either funny or precisely the point.
We are choosing to be gracious about that and intentional anyway. We are not painting perfection here. That is exactly why this work needs millions of imperfect environmentalists rather than a handful of flawless ones.
Sign a pact. Keep to it as much as you can. Start again the moment you don’t.
Organisations that collaborated with, supported or hosted our work this year.
We are grateful for the collaboration and support of:
We are in active partnership discussions with the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) and the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI). These are discussions, not agreements, and we will report on them when there is something to report.
Five appointments across programme, business development, partnerships, design and content.
One person cannot deliver three cohorts a year, build a platform and hold a public voice at the same time. This year we stopped trying.
Timileyin Okunlola joined as Programme Lead, holding training design and cohort delivery. Jeremiah Akwu came in as Business Development and Operations Associate, working partnerships and delivery across the Federal Capital Territory, and Abdulkadir Usman as Partnership & Growth Officer, building the pipeline of workplaces and institutions we train. Priscillia Ikezogwo joined as Lead Designer and Bukola Obe as Content Strategist, giving our brand and our publishing a single consistent hand.
Hiring at this stage is a commitment made against uncertain revenue. We made it because the work being asked of us had outgrown what one person could carry, and because the standard we hold in a training room should hold everywhere else too.
Governance, internal systems and financial position.
This year we focused on the unglamorous work: developing organisational policies, improving governance structures, expanding strategic partnerships, building programme delivery capacity, and strengthening digital communication and outreach. We also built internal tracking infrastructure so that cohort enrolment, participation and pledge completion are recorded consistently rather than reconstructed after the fact.
WasteVest is committed to transparency, accountability and responsible management. The organisation operates under policies covering safeguarding, financial management, ethical conduct, procurement, data protection and equal opportunity.
As an early-stage social enterprise, WasteVest invested during the reporting period in organisational development, programme design, technology development and partnership building. Funding came from organisational grants, capacity-building programmes, founder contributions and strategic partnerships. We remain committed to sound financial management, transparency and sustainable growth.
Innovation. Integrity. Collaboration. Inclusion. Sustainability. Accountability.
Priorities for the coming year.
Our priority stays the same: put practical climate knowledge in more hands, and build the technology and partnerships that make sustainable waste management reachable across Nigeria.
A financed collection pilot for Abuja and Lagos.
Most waste in Abuja and Lagos moves through independent operators, not municipal fleets. They know the routes and the households. What they lack is equipment, permits and standing.
We are structuring a phased collection facility in which WasteVest acts as facilitator rather than fleet owner: we certify, train, brand, permit and equip independent operators, who keep running their own routes. Financing is structured in three tranches across Abuja and Lagos phases, covering roughly 27 compactor tricycles at full deployment.
We are seeking financing partners for this pilot — impact investors, climate and circular economy funds, corporate sustainability budgets and grant-makers working on urban waste. The full investor pack, including tranche structure, unit economics, supplier terms and operator model, is available on request.
Supporting the startup ecosystem.
As part of our commitment to supporting fellow young startups, we are pleased to feature Investorlist.com, a platform that gives founders curated lists of active startup investors — venture capitalists, angels, family offices and accelerators — across stages, sectors and geographies, including impact, ESG and climate tech lists built for purpose-driven founders.
A stronger startup ecosystem comes from visibility, shared opportunities, and innovators getting access to the networks they need.
Impact is not only about what we build, but also about the doors we help others open.