Résumé

NB: ONLY TAX RESIDENTS OF THE NETHERLANDS ARE ALLOWED TO INVEST IN THIS OFFER

Basic info:

Issuer: Sistema.bio
Currency:  EUR 
Amount: 125,000
Maturity: 24 months, semi-annually and linearly amortizing 
Interest rate: 5.5% p.a.

Summary

Sistema.bio is a Mexican social enterprise that has been operating since 2010. We manufacture, sell, distribute, install, and finance high-quality biodigesters as turnkey packages for small-scale farmers. Our mission is to create value from waste all around the world: renewable energy (biogas) and organic fertilizer.

The problem: smallholder farmers produce almost 80% of the worldwide food. However, they are also the population that faces important barriers such as climate change, soil degradation and lack of access to financial services to improve their lives. 

The solution: biodigesters and full wrap-around service allow farmers to benefit from what used to be a problem (manure) to transform it into renewable energy. The digester also is a waste management system and contributes to eliminating pollution spots and reducing greenhouse gases. In that way, farmers can cook without smoke, avoiding pulmonary diseases, and also increase the productivity of their farms with organic fertilizer.

Sistema.bio has a holistic approach to address poverty, food security, and climate change, we work through three axes: technology, capacity building and financing. This solution allows us to solve problems efficiently and end the circle of disadvantages that previously seemed impossible to break, to create a more sustainable, equitable and empathic world without waste. 

The project

With their loan, farmers can pay the system with the savings they are making in fertilizer, wood, charcoal or LP gas; allowing them to pay for the whole system and service within 10 months on average, maximizing their return on investment.

With a loan of EUR 125,000, Sistema.bio will be able to manufacture and export the equivalent of four large containers from our manufacturing plant in Mexico to our clients in Mexico, Nigaragua and Colombia. After the half-day installation provided by Sistema.bio, farmers will start displacing fossil fuels, powering their farms with renewable energy and increase their crop production with organic fertilizer. 

The EUR 125,000 loan addresses the gap between the moment the biodigester is produced and the moment it is installed and paid by small farmers. Each euro we´re going to receive from Lendahand community will cover the cost of manufacturing, shipping and installing biodigesters ordered by our Kenyan clients. 

Mildred's story

Mildred has a tortilleria (tortilla shop) in Teabo, Yucatan. Teabo is a rural region in Mexico, and jobs are scarce in the community. Many people have no other choice than to migrate to the city to increase their income and support their families. To avoid this, Mildred decided to start her own business with five other women.

Mildred and her partners are housewives and mothers, who decided to start their business to contribute to the household through an extra income. They decided to invest in a Sistema.bio digester to share more with their neighbours and positively impact the community of Teabo.

They found out about Sistema.bio a few years ago, and they decided to install their own digester at the tortilleria. Each woman has pigs at home, and brings two buckets of fresh manure to the tortilleria every day to feed the digester. Mildred and her partners are now producing enough biogas to use it in the tortilla production process: they boil the corn with clean energy to prepare the tortilla dough.

What is most striking about these women is their desire to bring a benefit to the community, beyond their household and business. They are now producing tortillas in a more cost-effective way, as they are saving the money they used to spend on firewood and LP gas.  They have together decided to reduce the price of the tortilla in line with their savings, directly benefiting the whole community and helping others.

“I want to be supportive and not only think in my own necessities, but also in the necessities of other people”.

These women are an example of how the benefits of a Sistema.bio digester are transforming small farms and businesses into new opportunities for social entrepreneurship with strong environmental and economic impact in the whole communities, beyond the farm.

To watch Mildred’s full story, click here

Impact so far

The team

Alex Eaton

CEO and co-founder of Sistema.bio, Alex was working on solar energy projects in Central America when he discovered the potential of biodigesters and transformed a low-quality technology into a sustainable, empathetic, profitable and global social enterprise.

Esther Altorfer

CFO of Sistema.bio, Esther is passionate about leveraging innovative financing structures to improve access and affordability of biodigesters to small farmers.

Partners

●       BID

●       ENGIE

●       LCEF

●       Factor[e]

●       Shell Foundation

●       Kiva

Awards

●       Social Business of the year, 2010 Businesses in Development (BiD Network)

●       Switzer Environmental Leadership Fellow

●       Fellow Ashoka, New Ventures Mexico

●       Buckminster Fuller Challenge 2017 Finalists

●       Endeavor entrepreneurs

●       B Corp

●       GIIRS Company

●       UBS Visionaries

See the website