Our clients

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It is estimated that over 7.9 million hectares of the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest has been deforested to date, equalling approximately an area around the size of Scotland. This occurred at a rate of 150,000 hectares per year in the period 1990 - 2000. The Peruvian Ministry for the Environment of Peru (MINAM) declared this to represent a gigantic loss of economic and ecological benefits. Most of this deforestation was driven, and continues to be driven by subsistence agriculture. Ecosystem services are disappearing with the forest whilst the slash and burn subsistence agricultural methods used trap farmers in poverty. 

Farmers face technical, commercial and financial barriers to implementing sustainable agriculture.  They cannot plant and maintain timber trees to maturity because of the high upfront and long wait to realise value. They lack the knowledge of how to grow and cultivate crops and trees on degraded lands, how to sell non-timber products at fair prices by engaging with the formal market and supply chains and how to obtain certification for products and timber. 

Plant Your Future has created a project to restore degraded unproductive agricultural lands in the Amazon and reduce deforestation pressure from agriculture through a financially sustainable model for smallholder farmers.  This innovative climate-smart agroforestry model diversifies income streams from the sale of high value short-term crops, timber and carbon offsets as well as enhancing smallholder farmers’ technical and business capacity.  Plant Your Future began working in the Peruvian Amazon in 2009 and started its first planting activities in 2012.

In 2013 Plant Your Future established a programmatic framework for smallholders in Peru to access carbon finance, to enable certification in accordance with the requirements of the Verified Carbon Standard and Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) Standard.  The project is currently in the later stages of third-party audit by the Rainforest Alliance. 

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Light Years IP have worked with the Maasai in Kenya and Tanzania and women in Uganda to establish the Maasai Intellectual Property Initiative and Women's Owned Nilotica Shea, respectively, using their Intellectual Property Value Capture concepts to enable them to create and take ownership of brands from which they can make a sustainable financial income.

Maasai Intellectual Property Initiative:

The Massai, a tribe of three million, has a cultural brand used by over 1,000 companies to gain sales from the value of the association with the Maasai culture but at least 80% of the Maasai live in poverty. By taking control of the Maasai cultural brand themselves, the Maasai people can benefit from this use.  With the assistance of Light Years IP, the Maasai have formed a representative entity in Kenya and Tanzania of Maasai elders and leaders, the Massai Intellectual Property Initiative Trust, and with intellectual property training and a licensing program designed and delivered by Light Years IP, over 1.5 million Maasai have been engaged.  Taking ownership of their cultural brand and licensing this to corporates will make a substantial and financially sustainable impact to the Maasai people.

Women's Owned Nilotica Shea (WONS):

Light Years IP has trained the first 700 women, including former child soldiers and abductees to launch a new brand and own the exclusive importer/distributor for their highly distinctive East Africa Nilotica shea butter. The women have formed a Ugandan-based cooperative, WONS, in which they each have an ownership stake. Light Years IP has completed the first round of Grade A nut purchasing among the leadership of WONS, as a test purchase for high end sales testing. Partners at Do More Good, and Impact Labs will complete brand packaging for full service re-positioning, and along with Timothy Han of London re-position the women to achieve high end prices, targeted at $US 45-60/30cc.

The intention is for WONS Uganda to own the exclusive UK-based distributor that will market high-end Shea cosmetic products in 2015.  Currently, Nilotica shea producers receive up to 1% of the retail price paid in wealthy markets. The UK business owned by the shea gatherers will put the women in control of about 50% of the retail price with placement in high-end UK stores, with branding and quality designed to last for the long-term.  In 2015, Light Years IP will take expand this project to the women of South Sudan.

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Launched in November 2014, the Homeless World Cup Supporters Club is an innovative fund-raising concept established to support the vital work of the Homeless World Cup Foundation through the creation of the world’s "largest virtual stadium", with a capacity for one million people. Revenue generated from the virtual stadium, through seat sales, sponsorship, and retail/merchandising will be used to support the Homeless World Cup Foundation. Using football as a means to get homeless and marginalised people off the streets, the Homeless World Cup Foundation works with 70 partner organizations across 70 countries; assisting more than 100,000 homeless people a year.

Having found a means to attract a hard to reach demographic through the inclusive nature of football and put the homeless people at the centre of the solution by teaching the skills and empowering them to make changes in their own lives, the attention has now shifted to tackling public perception and harnessing the power of the global support base the Homeless World Cup has generated. In August 2014, Mel Young, the co-founder of the Homeless World Cup and founder of the Homeless World Cup Supporters Club moved closer to that vision by successfully securing £250,000 of initial investment from social angel investors. With the stadium due to "open" in February 2015, the invitation is there – are you in?

“Joining the new Supporters Club will not just mean seeing some great football action – it will help us change the world” – Mel Young

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As part of our BaSE training programme, we find that case studies are a really good way to encourage people to consider the issues that social enterprises may face.  We devised an exercise around a social enterprise placing on the market solar panels in Africa.  This aligns with the innovative work of M-Kopa which has brought clean solar energy to thousands of homes and businesses who are not connected to the electrical grid.

An article on M-Kopa can be found here.

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Now Teach provides a route for experienced professionals to successfully become teachers with sustainable, long-term careers.

Now Teach focuses primarily on shortage subjects (e.g., science, maths, IT and modern foreign languages) and delivers its programme nationwide.

Now Teach partners with schools, universities and training providers to support career changes and connect them with a strong professional network to amplify impact and accelerate progress.

Find out more here nowteach.org.uk/

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Appt Health provides an intelligent appointment booking platform designed to help the NHS transform preventative healthcare.

Appt Health combines accessible delivery technology with behavioural economics, targeted messaging and data analysis to help patients' book routine NHS appointments.

Appt Health enables healthcare to be more easily administrated, which means that more diseases are caught early and more patients are treated accordingly.

For more information go to www.appt-health.co.uk/ 

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FASE creates a unique ecosystem for financing social enterprises.

FASE supports social enterprises in finding appropriate finance and raising growth capital.

FASE designs innovative finance schemes (such as its Social Innovation and Impact Fund) to match the needs of social enterprises and impact investors.

FASE aims to create a balanced risk/return ratio with a compelling social impact and a moderate positive internal rate of return for its investors, all while providing social enterprises with risk capital which would otherwise be difficult to obtain.

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Nice To Eat You connects restaurants and food shops with final users, through a business to consumer marketplace.

Nice To Eat You avoids food waste by providing a second chance to all food which has not been sold at the end of the day.

Nice To Eat You offers final users fresh food at a discounted price, allowing shops to save excess food waste and reduce their own CO2 emissions.

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The Agora Projects strive to promote a more sustainable and equitable environment for social enterprises.

The Agora Projects provide high potential, early and growth stage social enterprises with in-depth consulting support, as well as access to mentors, investors and a global community of like-minded peers.

The Agora Projects build solar-powered, Wi-Fi-enabled pavilions that provide solar energy and internet access to communities, companies and universities in North America.

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Drinkwell delivering services in Bangladesh is a technology platform for clean water. Their technology is embedded within water infrastructure purifying millions of litres of water every month, worldwide.  Drinkwell now has over 180 Water ATMs providing safe water to over 228,000 people in Dhaka thanks to social impact investment which a Hogan Lovells team in London, and Washington were able to advise on. 

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Page & Bloom are reinventing floristry with paper flowers, transformed from preloved books, maps and paper. They provide fair employment and opportunities for women who have experienced domestic abuse, working in partnership with domestic abuse charities who refer women to Page & Bloom once they have moved on from a women's refuge.

Their beautiful handmade flowers start out as paper that has come to the end of its original life. Page & Bloom's skilled designers transform these raw materials and give paper a new lease of life.

Find out more about Page & Bloom here.

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Canvas Coffee is an award winning speciality coffee shop and social enterprise. To the customer the Canvas is simply a great coffee shop but behind the scenes the café is used to help those in early recovery from drug and alcohol addiction develop skills and confidence to take next steps in their life through volunteer opportunities and barista skills training courses.  Canvas offers:

• a free half-day course which covers the basics of how to make great espresso, which is the basis of a great coffee. This is aimed at anyone in abstinence based recovery looking to learn new skills and get out of the recovery bubble and routine for a few hours; and
• a 12 week volunteer work experience placement available to anyone who has completed the Basic course and is looking to learn, challenge or create new opportunities for themselves.  On the programme clients gain valuable knowledge, customer service experience and become familiar with working as part of a small team.

For more information go to canvascoffee.co.uk

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Lucky Iron Fish works to address iron deficiency in Cambodia and around the world. They have developed a cooking aid that can provide an entire family with up to 90% of their daily iron intake for up to 5 years. The aid is a small iron fish that when included in the cooking process increases iron levels. Lucky Iron Fish has already helped over 10,000 families.  It is a simple, affordable and effective solution anyone can use.

Lucky Iron FIsh also sells its fish internationally on its website (www.luckyironfish.com) and for every purchase it donates funds to support those with iron deficiency around the world.

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The Lotus Flower is a non-profit that supports women and girls impacted by conflict and displacement.  They are local implementers that work at the grassroots level to get right into the heart of communities.

Born out of the founder’s passion and personal experience of the humanitarian crises of Kurdistan, northern Iraq in 2014. It empowers vulnerable women and girls so that they are safe, have opportunities to learn, given the tools to become financially independent and have the freedom to speak out and lead change.

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TIC is a non-profit organization based in Mexico whose members are indigenous people and communities.

TIC's social purpose is to provide telecommunication services to indigenous communities that, due to their remote location, are not serviced by commercial operators for lack of profitability. Furthermore, TIC services enable the improved administration of public safety, health and social welfare.

For more information see: https://www.tic-ac.org/historia/

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The GiveMeTap bottles are the world's most giving water bottles. Every bottle you buy gives 5 years of clean water to a person in Africa & you get free water.

https://www.givemetap.com

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