When we started doing the research for Matawi, I was shocked to learn that 70% of the world's water goes toward sustaining big agriculture. 

There's a company in India which is using bagasse, which is the waste material from sugar cane, to make sanitary towels. Bagasse, which is that waste product, is a huge problem for the sugar industry because they generate so much of it and there isn't really much that they can do with it.

The heightened inequality and unemployment while meeting a commercial need and making sure that it's a profitable venture that can keep the cycle going so that, as we grow, we can hopefully employ more and more people and get them to a place where their increased earnings, their agency and their ability to lead their own cooperatives mean that they are making a meaningful change within their communities.

I think I also only had an intellectual appreciation for it until day zero was very much on the horizon. South Africans are at the point where it's no longer a conversation further down the line. We are feeling the effects of climate change.

Your waste is someone else's treasure. You just need to identify the players within that ecosystem who can benefit from every single item, from the point of sowing to genesis to consumption to use and finally disposal.

The best advice I can give is to start thinking about yourself and ask yourself what skill or skill set you have, that you want to bring to bear to make a contribution towards resolving the environmental crisis that we're confronting right now.

It meant really breaking down the bite sizes of the story so that people may be willing to partner with us on the training and capacitation, but not necessarily the manufacture and the production. It was very much a programmatic approach.

We partnered with people who are already experts in distribution, and who have their networks and established retailer relationships. So it's not a case of knocking on every small independent supplier’s door to take us on, because there are people who do that as their daily bread and butter.

Mo’s Crib, an interior design company that was started by two sisters and that makes the most beautiful lifestyle items, but they use recyclable goods.

We’re this team of multigenerational African women working tirelessly to build a company that lives out our values and that gives the fullest expression to the revival and the joy and the celebration of a black booze brand, but in a way that encapsulates the positive aspects of alcohol as a part of celebration and as a part of joy and as a part of cultural expression.