LIONESS WEEKENDER COVER STORY
RecyclePoints, a waste recycling social enterprise changing lives and the environment
Chioma Ukonu is an award-winning social entrepreneur with over a decade of hands-on experience and international exposure in environmental sustainability, women empowerment, youth employment, business leadership, circular economy, government and community engagement. She is currently the Co-Founder/COO of RecyclePoints, Nigeria’s foremost waste recycling and social benefit venture that motives post-consumers to recycle by creating value from their everyday waste. Chioma, who is well known for her strong business acumen, has received business training from various prestigious institutions around the world including the Said Business School, Oxford University in the United Kingdom; Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, USA; and Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of the Pan Atlantic University Lagos in Nigeria. Chioma has built RecyclePoints, which started from her kitchen, to a major stakeholder in waste management in Africa, creating over 230 green jobs and recycling over 100,000kg of waste monthly, whilst sustaining RecyclePoints as the social currency that converts waste to wealth.
Over the years at a personal level, Chioma has been recognised for her vision and work at RecyclePoints and has won various awards and accolades including the LEAP Africa Social Innovator Award in 2017. She was also a Finalist for the 2018 Pritzker Environmental Genius Award by the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). In recognition of the special talent that she is, and her contributions to society in the area of social innovation, she was appointed a Judge for the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Inclusive Innovative Change initiative in 2019. As Head of Operations at RecyclePoints Nigeria, Chioma has also led the organization to win so many awards and accolades which include: Coca-Cola Forum Climate Change Award 2020, Chivas Venture Nigeria Award, and only Nigerian representative at the 2017 Chivas Global Awards for Social Enterprise that took place in Los Angeles, United States of America. Also the Villa Demo Day Award and her company representative was received at an audience by President Muhammad Buhari and Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. RecyclePoints was also a finalist at the 2018 MIT Legatum/Zambezi Prize Award for Financial Inclusion, which granted her business training in the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Boston USA.
A successful social impact professional, Chioma advocates for women empowerment, youth employment, environmental sustainability, and community engagement. She is also responsible for RecyclePoints’ partnership tie-ups that foster social impact with various international organisations such as the Mastercard Foundation, The Schmidt Family Foundation, Coca-Cola Foundation, to name a few. She is also a volunteer at CleanUp Nigeria, Habitat for Humanity, Regina Foodbank, ClimateSmart Nigeria and Green Women Forum. A certified broadcaster and an internationally sought-after conference speaker, Chioma is a pioneer speaker of the first TED event held in Eastern Nigeria, TEDx Aladinma. She was also a speaker at the UNDESA 54th Commission on Social Development at the UN HQ in New York, USA; a speaker at the Lionesses of Africa annual conference held in South Africa; a speaker at the Social Media Week Lagos which is one of the biggest tech conferences in Africa; and a speaker at the Cherie Blair Foundation’s International Women’s Day Conference held in 2019 in London, UK, to mention a few. Chioma is also a member of various fellowships and leadership groups, some of which include; the USA government’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, African Youth Initiative on Climate Change, Chivas Venture Global Alumni Fellowship, LEAP Africa Social Innovators Fellowship, Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Program Alumni Fellowship and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. She is a proud African, a Nigerian, a wife to Mazi Ukonu and her co-founder at RecyclePoints, a mother of three lovely kids, result-oriented, and a resiliently hard-working young lady. She stands for sustainable development; her work is a perfect blend of “for people, planet, and profit” and she is a firm believer in a better Africa, where Africans are integral to the solutions for Africa’s problems.
Lioness Weekender spoke to Chioma to learn more about her business and her impact-driven entrepreneurial journey so far.
What does your company do?
RecyclePoints is Nigeria's foremost waste recycling and social benefit venture that motivates post-consumers to recycle by creating value from their everyday waste. Founded in 2012, today we currently have 35 employees. At RecyclePoints we have developed a POINT-Based incentive model, a mobile app, Recycling Banks and IoT enabled recycling bins with which we collect from registered post-consumers, PET bottles, aluminum cans, old newspapers, corrugated brown cartons, pure water sachets, and paper and in turn, reward them with POINTS which can be used to redeem cash and household items (as small as a pack of milk to as big as a flat screen tv). To innovate our cash payment to Waste Pickers we work with selected banks to open low KYC bank accounts for waster pickers in our locations, to enable them to receive their payment electronically, thus achieving financial inclusion for unbanked demography. The collected waste all comes to our community-based Collection and Sorting Hubs (CoSoHubs) where women within the community sort the collected waste before they are processed and sold as raw materials for the production of new items. At RecyclePoints we believe that solutions that get citizens to clearly understand the value they can drive from a clean and health healthy environment, not only breed economically stable citizens but also protectors of nature. Our innovative solutions foster; circular economy, community engagement, women empowerment, youth employment, and environmental sustainability.
What inspired you to start your company?
The passion to live a purposeful life where I can help people live better lives, and an embarrassing incident while on a family vacation where we deposed of our waste wrongly and got fined for it, motivated me to start recycling.
What makes your business, service or product special?
Our various innovations, the human factor at the core of our values, a passionate and dedicated team, and the transparency of our activities, are a few attributes that make RecyclePoints special.
Tell us a little about your team
The Management team of RecyclePoints comprises of outstanding professionals that are driven with the passion for a sustainable environment with over 40 years of collective experience between the three of them. Each member of the team brings unique and valuable expertise to the company.
Chioma Ukonu (Mrs.), an Operations & Social Impact Specialist holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics & Electronics from the Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria. She earned a Certificate in Enterprise Development and Social Sector Management from the Pan Africa University Lagos. She has transversed through the telecoms and banking sectors serving in the sales, marketing, customer service, and relationship management units. She currently runs the operations of RecyclePoints as the Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer (COO).
Mazi Ukonu, a Materials Engineer, and Supply-Chain Manager, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Materials & Metallurgical Engineering from the Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria. He has over 15years of experience in Procurement and Logistics Management in the Oil & Gas industry. He earned an Executive Certificate in Technology, Operations, and Value Chain Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management and has attended numerous MBA courses in Supply-Chain and Project Management. As a materials expert, he privately sought to build a viable model for waste recycling cum social enterprise that will suit the Nigerian ethos and the result is RecyclePoints.
Taiwo Adewole, an Environmentalist and Waste Management Consultant, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Geography and Master’s Degree in Environmental Resources Management from Lagos State University. He is an Associate Member of the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management, U.K, (IIRSM); Member, International Solid Waste Association (ISWA); Associate Member, Nigeria Institute of Management, (NIM); Member, Nigeria Environmental Society (NES); Member, Nigeria Conservation Foundation (NCF). He runs a very successful environmental assessment consultancy and has renowned corporate clients under his portfolio. He also privately consults on how to turn trash/waste into wealth.
Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And, do you come from an entrepreneurial background?
The act of business or entrepreneurship comes naturally to people of my tribe (Igbo) in Nigeria, so I grew up surrounded by business women (my grandma, mum, and aunties). I was exposed to the concept of money and trading at an early age. Even while in university I was running my footwear business. Then I met and married my husband who was of like passion for both business and helping others, which made it easier for us to found a social enterprise, RecyclePoints, where we have encouraged and supported a lot of people to come into the business of waste recycling, all whilst empowering our communities.
What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?
We hope to keep working towards a world without waste. We hope to keep expanding our operational footprint, making waste recycling accessible to more communities. We hope to produce more items from the waste we collect, thus closing the loop on more items internally.
What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurship has given me an opportunity to be part of the change I want to see in my community and Africa at large, and that is very satisfying.
What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?
I will say "Just start". Have a very big vision but start with whatever you have now, no matter how small it is, then grow into your big picture. Also, brace yourselves for the impact of the challenges that are peculiar to doing business on your side of the globe; so it won't take you by surprise, rather you will innovate around the challenges. Above all, as a woman, don’t be afraid to take up spaces in your field.
To learn more about the work of Chioma Ukonu and RecyclePoints, contact her via email chioma.ukonu@recyclepoints.com or visit the company’s website and social media platforms:
