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Hydrogen build-out opens new markets for circular businesses

September 23, 2026

Dear subscriber,

Africa’s hydrogen ambitions are beginning to move from plans to projects — cautiously, but steadily. And the opportunity may not stop at hydrogen itself. As the sector takes shape, circularity could become part of the wider industrial ecosystem around hydrogen projects, creating potential entry points for African businesses.

Mercy Maina - Editor

Africa’s green hydrogen economy is moving from project announcements towards development, creating opportunities to build circular systems around resource and infrastructure needs. South Africa has identified six priority projects, with one reaching final investment decision, while Mauritania’s Project AMAN has moved into detailed design.

  • Green hydrogen production for export from Africa could reach around 1 million tonnes a year by 2030, rising to 11 million tonnes by 2050, according to the Hydrogen Council. (“Green” hydrogen is created from renewable energy sources.)

  • Circularity opportunities will emerge at different stages of the hydrogen build-out, from operational services and water reuse to longer-term equipment recycling and material recovery.

  • Our take: Existing businesses may have a stronger entry point than new ventures… Read more (2 min)

As African countries strive to improve waste collection, questions remain around how recovery can be tracked, verified and financed across the region’s fragmented waste value chains. Wouter Brasem of Kolekt discusses the company’s certificate model and its role in linking waste recovery to payments.

  • Mr Brasem leads business development in East Africa for Kolekt, a global waste technology company developing digital infrastructure for waste recovery, traceability and financing across markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

  • “We see the Kolekt Certificates as the building block of proof that is urgently needed to finance the waste sector by creating a system of lean and efficient digital PROs (< 10% overheads) in African countries to handle the collection and transfer of funds on behalf of the EPR regulators and to become a fair and efficient municipal waste billing system for waste management at the municipal level,” he says.

  • Find the full conversation… here (2 min)

South Africa is putting $1 billion from the BRICS-backed New Development Bank towards reforms across eight metros, adding to a pipeline of multilateral financing for urban water, electricity and waste services. The financing signals a shift towards integrating infrastructure systems underpinning resource recovery and circularity in African cities.

  • The emerging pipeline is moving beyond standalone waste projects towards the municipal systems and services that determine how cities collect, use, recover and manage resources.

  • This reflects the logic of circular cities, where waste, water, energy and other urban systems are planned together to improve resource efficiency, reduce losses and create the infrastructure conditions for resource recovery.

  • Our take: For businesses, the size of the opportunity will depend on whether cities can operate the infrastructure effectively to create reliable flows of recoverable resources…Read more (2 min)

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Source: Gondwana Collection

HygO pilot system in Namibia, testing wastewater-to-green hydrogen conversion

Events

🫂 Connect with peers at the 11th Circular Economy Conference in Kenya (Sept 30)

💃 Be at the South Africa 2026 Local Circularity Summit & E-Waste Festival (0ct 12)

📦 Sign up for the 6th Africa International E-Waste Conference in Kenya (Oct 15)

🪪 Network at WasteCon 2026 in South Africa (Oct 20)

🤝 Participate in the African Biochar Alliance Summit in Zambia (Oct 27)

✍️ Register for the Biomass Briquettes & Bioenergy Conference in Kenya (Oct 29)

📅 Attend the 2nd Annual ESG & Climate Africa Summit in Kenya (Nov 24)

Jobs

🧑‍🏫 Train stakeholders on circular economy at KEPSA (Kenya)

👔 Supervise the solids control team at Baker Hughes (Kenya)

🧕🏽 Optimise water and industrial effluent treatment at UM6P (Morocco)

👷Oversee medical waste treatment at Compass Medical Waste Services  (S. Africa)

🧑‍💼 Identify and develop relationships with stakeholders at Vanden Recycling (Kenya)

🧑‍✈️ Lead commercial operations at Suez (Morocco)

🧑‍🦰 Join SLR Consulting’s mine waste team (Namibia)

🧔 Spearhead waste management operations at Zutari (South Africa)

Various 

👮 Somaliland adopts UK-backed solid waste management laws 

💰 BIG raises $1.5m to turn Africa’s agricultural waste into carbon credits

✅ South Africa launches a National Waste Facilities Locator 

🐟 Nearly 25 tons of end-of-life fishing net recycled in S. Africa’s project’s first year

♻️ New initiative in S. Africa aims to tackle fertiliser costs via wastewater recycling

💹 Global zero-waste chemical manufacturing market to grow to $104.7 B by 2033 

Seen on LinkedIn 

Ikena Nzewi, CEO and Founder of Biochar Industrial Group (BIG), says, “Excited to announce that BIG has raised $1.5M to scale industrial biochar infrastructure across Africa. Africa has a unique opportunity to lead in scalable, cost-effective biomass-based carbon removal. We have abundant agricultural residues, but much of this waste is still burned, dumped, or left underutilised. We believe the opportunity is to build the infrastructure that connects these two realities.”