Nelly Gesare poses with an environmentally friendly shopping bag from Green Thing Kenya. Photo by Green Thing Kenya, used with permission.
This story was written by Bonface Oucho and originally published on March 20, 2025 by Bird Story Agency. This revised version will be released again as part of a content participation below.
Entry into one of the environmentally conscious retail stores from Nelly Gesare in Kenya is like in a world that goes into a world in transformation.
Glass bottles that were once rejected as waste are now slim drinking cups and glasses. Fabric errors that were saved from landfill were sewn in desirable shopping bags and reusable dishwashed sponges.
Each shelf tells a story – not out of waste, but of renewal. This is now the world of the former journalist who has made the challenge of waste to a flourishing business. In an interview with Bird Story Agency, she explained:
I use Green Thing Kenya to tell the history of sustainability and the opportunities it contains. My goal is to break down sustainability and show that it is not just about the environment – it is about a wider systemic shift.
She added:
We focus on environmentally friendly home care, recycled materials and sustainable textiles. Some of our work includes the white label production for other brands.
The production of White Label is when a product is made by a party and sold to other retailers that add your own labels and adjustments.
Increasing demand for environmentally friendly products
Green Thing Kenya is one of a series of upcycling brands, including Ecandi, Ecosafi, Mokomaya and others who operate in Nairobi.
According to Cynthia Atieno, a sustainability expert at the United Nations Environmental Program, the rise of eco-bridel in the region signals a growing consumer preference for sustainable products. She explained:
It is incredibly encouraging to see that brands like Green Thing Kenya win the market success. It confirms that sustainability is not just a trend, but a flourishing market with real demand and long -term potential.
The trend is also in expansion mode, far beyond large cities such as Nairobi.
Dennis Ondari, a 26-year-old entrepreneur from Kisii Town, who has been running a business with glass bottle waste since December 2024, calls the increasing demand for environmentally friendly products as the “biggest motivator” for the start of his company. He explained in a telephone interview:
Before I started 'Chupa Zone', I worked for an ÖKO product business in Nairobi for three years. I experienced growth; That's why I decided to replicate the model here.
However, Grauten revealed that at the beginning of her company she was not a sustainability entrepreneur a decade ago. She noticed:
As a journalist, my main goal was always to make information accessible and digestible – both for the broad public and younger audience.
She added:
In 2012, sustainability was still a very new concept. To raise awareness, I created a TV series and presented media houses with which I had previously worked. However, the challenge was that the content was not prioritized. Then I decided to take the matter into my own hands.
The trip was hardly uneventful. Her first business attempt was the production of reusable metallic straws, a company that reached a roadblock when the local production costs rose to not sustainable 1,500 schilling (about USD 12) per straw. But instead of giving up, she found a new way forward.
A turning point came. I lost everything. With the little time I had left, I launched a product – and it was sold out in two days. This experience showed me the power of sustainability business.
About Green Thing Kenya
In a few years, Gesare not only created eco-burning for the sale of a series of products, but also showed that individuals can transform waste into flourishing companies. Your role model is a model that not only helps to eliminate the environment, but also enable local communities.
Sustainable home of Green Thing Kenya. Photo by Green Thing Kenya. Used with permission.
The company works with Women -Watste Pickers and offers them fair wages while they appreciate their role in the circular economy.
By formalizing the waste collection and providing financial stability for these employees, Gerals proves that sustainability solutions must also be centered. She noticed:
My strength was always in identifying people – finding the right talent and creating opportunities for them.
Today Green Thing Kenya transforms thrown away glass, fabric and plastics into a variety of environmentally friendly objects, from biodegradable cleaning agents to upcycled textiles such as reusable shell sponges and make-up remover.
The company also operates a solar-powered stitching station and ensures that even the production process matches its sustainability ethos. GEEESARE noticed:
I recently also set up a glass blowing studio of its kind in Kenya for 30 years and the first to belong to a Kenyan woman.
Challenges that are offset by women
While Gesara opposes the impressive hurdles that African entrepreneurs, especially women, meet, not all women have the same opportunities. Many women in Africa faces unique challenges of their male colleagues, from gender -specific challenges in securing funds and social stigma, to firmly anchored gender roles and topics that navigate to navigate global economic uncertainties. She noticed:
For many women in business, financing is often assessed on the basis of risks and not to potential. To date, I have never received a grant. And yet I have grown from a solo entrepreneur to more than ten full-time employees.
The financing challenges with which startups run by women in Africa may best be recorded in a report from 2023 of the startup financing tracking organization Africa: The Big Deal.
Although Africa has the highest rate of entrepreneurial entrepreneurship worldwide, startups with solo or purely female founders secured only 2.3 percent of the total African startup financing in 2023. This number increases to 15 percent for teams with at least one founder.
A 2023 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that more than a quarter of all companies were either started or managed by women.
For comparison: in Europe, entrepreneurial activity in women is only 5.7 percent according to the European investment bank.
Entrepreneurs such as gutars underline the resilience of African women in business. She said:
I now diversify my sources of income through exports. From this month we started exporting glass products.
Africa's unused opportunities in eco -mode products
Studies of development system suggests that global trade in environmental goods has increased significantly between 1994 and 2021, but the distribution remains strongly unbalanced. While China dominates with 17.3 percent of global exports, Africa only contributes 1 percent, with South Africa more than half of this share, which indicates that Africa has many unused opportunities in the trade with eco -products.
Geare's product line serves as proof of the sustainability of the industry in Germany, whereby thousands of customers now select biodegradable material about plastic, which proves that the business can be both profitable and responsible.
Green Thing Kenias Current income comes from three product categories: environmentally friendly hotel products, environmentally friendly products for domestic care and non -toxic cleaning products.
Some of its most popular products such as glassware received an overwhelming positive market reaction. In its first month of operation, the company achieved over 200,000 Kes (more than USD 1,500) in glass product sales. Today it processes more than 4,000 bottles every month.
The company is now expanding beyond Kenya. Green Thing recently entered the export market, shipping and environmentally friendly home care products for international buyers. In order to maintain this growth, Geare works with universities at the latest sustainability research and invests in improved packaging to meet global standards.
For aspiring green entrepreneurs, their message is clear:
You have it to make it possible. If one thing does not work, it is often a detour to examine what you can do with the resources available to you.