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Catherine Weetman talks to Louise Bijleveld, Co-Founder of LONO in Côte d’Ivoire. Lono helps agro-industrial companies and farmer cooperative to create value from waste, by converting it into biofertilizers and biogas. Its overall aim is to help value reach rural areas and reduce the inequalities in agricultural supply chains.
Côte d’Ivoire is an important global producer of cocoa beans, cashew nuts, natural rubber and tropical fruits – all of these produce huge amounts of agricultural waste when harvested. The farms are often in remote areas, so it’s a big challenge to find ways to combine compatible feedstocks and make the logistics cost-effective.
Podcast host Catherine Weetman helps businesses use circular, regenerative and fair solutions to do better, with less.
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Read on for more on our guest and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention.
Links we mention in the episode:
- Visit the Linear Risks Guide page on our website to download the free 7-page Linear Risk Matrix mini-guide, or get the full 23-page Linear Risks Guide (also free).
- Register for the roundtable (free) with Catherine Weetman “A JOURNEY TO A SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN” with the International Purchasing & Supply Chain Management Master’s at the ESSEC Business School, June 23, 2021, and I’ve included the registration link in the shownotes.
- Global Sustainable Supply Chain Summit 8th – 9th of June https://www.globalsustainablesupplychain.com/
- https://www.lonoci.com
- https://facebook.com/LONOCI
- https://twitter.com/lono_ci
About Louise Bijleveld
Louise and Noel decided to start an entrepreneurial adventure together back in 2010, but it was only in 2016 that these plans became reality. In that year, they created the social enterprise LONO. LONO’s main mission is to create direct value by transforming organic waste into bio fertilizers and energy.
Louise was born and raised in the Netherlands. She studied Sociology and International Development Studies in Amsterdam and after completing her studies she started working in the public sector. She held several positions within different ministries, was positioned at the representation to the European Union in Brussels for 6 months and eventually worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on development cooperation and foreign trade. Although working with highly passionate and talented people in the public domain, she started missing concrete and direct value creation in her job after several years.
When she moved to Côte d’Ivoire, she wanted to learn how to do business first, so she started working as a consultant for an Ivorian company as international business developer in 2016 and 2017 while setting up LONO ‘on the side’. By 2018 she continued to work full-time for LONO. Within the company, she is responsible for non-technical business operations, partnerships and social impact. She was named Forbes 30 Under 30 European Social Entrepreneur in 2019.
If you’re new to the circular economy, you might like the ‘getting started’ playlist. There’s also an interactive podcast index, making it easy to find episodes on each of the key circular economy strategies or for a specific market sector. And to dig deeper, please check out Catherine’s award-winning A Circular Economy Handbook, published by Kogan Page.
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