The solutions to food loss and waste are already taking shape in local communities across Poland and Romania. On the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, NESsT explores what we have learned from supporting social enterprises tackling these challenges and how the right support, capital, and partnerships can help more of them succeed.

NESsT and The Ashmore Foundation announce a three-year partnership to support Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC)-led bioeconomy enterprises in the Colombian Amazon. The partnership, which marks a renewed collaboration between NESsT and The Ashmore Foundation, will help strengthen NESsT's ongoing work in the region with a specific focus on opportunities for women and young people within Indigenous enterprises. 

NESsT’s partnership with Sweden, through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), began in 2024. Just two years later, it has become one of the partnerships that has most significantly shaped NESsT’s work across the region.

“Echoes for the Amazon” is an impact investment fund created by Festival Cordillera and Páramo Impacta and managed by NESsT to protect this vital global ecosystem, working alongside those who have been doing so for generations. With NESsT’s support, every transaction generates sustainable cycles of care, regeneration, and long-term impact.

NESsT, in partnership with IEB and CEPF, is launching Raízes do Cerrado: Strengthening the Sustainability and Impact of Socio-Bioeconomy Enterprises for Conservation, aiming to strengthen the socio-bioeconomy as a pathway to conserving the Cerrado, one of the most biodiverse biomes in the world.

Last month we joined several partners from across the IKEA Social Entrepreneurship network in Älmhult, Sweden, for three days of dialogue, exchange, and collective reflection on how we can better support social enterprises creating positive social and environmental impact around the world.

After overcoming one of the most challenging periods in its history, Plastic Corporation emerged stronger with a circular economy model that benefits agricultural producers, recyclers, and local communities alike. Discover how the Peruvian social enterprise is turning agricultural plastic waste into decent jobs, new income opportunities, and positive environmental impact.

After five years in the NESsT South America Accelerator program, Empanacombi graduates from the NESsT portfolio with a stronger business model, diversified revenue streams, and an expanding social impact. Discover how the enterprise turned challenge into opportunity while advancing inclusive employment for people with disabilities in Peru.

The Regional Indigenous Incubator for the Amazon is a pilot program that strengthens Indigenous-led enterprises driving social well-being and the conservation of Amazonian territories. It does so through an innovative governance and incubation model led directly by Indigenous organizations. 

NESsT participated in the Bioeconomy Amazon Summit (BAS) 2026, held from May 12–14 in Belém, Pará, Brazil, joining leaders from its portfolio enterprises in conversations on locally rooted development, financing, restoration, sociobiodiversity value chains, and the future of the Amazonian sociobioeconomy.

International Pride Day is a moment of visibility and celebration, and a reminder that, in some contexts, dignity and inclusion are still not guaranteed in everyday life, including at work. In this blog, we look at why inclusive entrepreneurship matters for building fairer labor markets, and why supporting small and growing businesses is essential to expanding access to dignified work and strengthening more inclusive workplace cultures.

This World Refugee Day 2026, we spoke to Ruslan Syvoplias, the Ukrainian entrepreneur behind Future Leaders Project (FLP). Drawing on Ruslan’s own experience of migration, FLP offer a more inclusive model of early education for families facing displacement. In this blog hear Ruslan’s journey building FLP, why early education matters for refugee children, and how – with NESsT’s support – he is strengthening this model to reach more families rebuilding their lives in Poland. 

Indigenous-led enterprises in the Amazon are building livelihoods in ways that keep forests standing, drawing on knowledge that has guided life in relation to nature for generations. In the Ecuadorian Amazon, Kichwa-led organization Ruku Kawsay is just one example of how this works in practice, ensuring stronger livelihoods and a standing forest through the traditional Amazonian farming system known as “chakra”.

NESsT is recognized by the Ministry of the Environment in Peru (MINAM), alongside a group of impact investors and organizations that drive biodiversity-based solutions in Peru.

We’re delighted to release the NESsT 2025 Annual Report, highlighting a year defined by far-reaching impact and transformative growth. For nearly three decades, NESsT has worked at the nexus of people, profit, and the planet. In 2025, we reached a milestone that speaks to this mission: since its founding, NESsT has positively impacted the lives of over 4.7 million people from communities around the world.

Meet Lida Medina, Indigenous entrepreneur from Vaupés, Colombia. For years, she and the women of her territory occupied a secondary place in community life, with most of their roles centred on domestic work and limited participation in public spaces. One day, she realized that the change she was waiting for needed to come from within, and so she proposed something radically different: What if the women of her community came together, formed an association, and took ownership of their futures?

Women continue to face structural and cultural barriers that range from unequal access to financing and business networks to a disproportionate burden of unpaid work and less visibility in decision-making spaces. We caught up with Gonzalo San Martín of NESsT Chile about participating in FLII as the “human book” Women that are changing the equation, where he shared NESsT’s journey in gender-lens investing and his own experience strengthening the gender balance in Chile’s portfolio.

Born in Putumayo, Colombia, BioIncos co-founder Yuli Rodríguez has pride in the territory that raised her and the opportunity to create dignified work among the biodiversity that exists there. When they first started BioIncos and began sourcing cacay from local communities to transform it into a natural oil, very few producers believed they had a valuable product that others would be willing to purchase. Read their story here.

Four years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we hear from professionals whose lives and careers were suddenly interrupted and the social entrepreneurs working to support them in rebuilding through dignified work.

World Day of Social Justice reaffirms our commitment to poverty eradication, full and productive employment and decent work for all, and social inclusion as the interrelated pillars of social development.

This video brings together testimonies from leaders in the sociobioeconomy who have participated in key climate and finance forums, such as COP30 in Belém, with support from NESsT. Grounded in lived experience, these leaders’ perspectives highlight why their presence is essential in spaces where far-reaching decisions are made.

Cooperativa Agraria Sonomoro del Vraem (COAS) joined the NESsT Lirio Fund in 2023 and has since received a revolving capital line of credit and a term loan to scale its cacao production, ensure steady income for its cacao producers, and strengthen its commitment to conserving local biodiversity. Based on the cooperative’s strong track record of sustainable operations in a volatile market, in 2025, NESsT renewed the cooperative’s revolving credit loan, ensuring it can continue to pay local producers for raw cacao while meeting the rising global demand for high-quality cacao. 

In 2025, the NESsT Lirio Fund extended repeat loans to Greenbox and Cuencas del Huallaga, reflecting our continued commitment to these enterprises’ business models and impact. Operating in regions where farming families have few income livelihood options and often turn to illicit crops and environment-damaging monocultures to generate quick income, these enterprises offer sustainable livelihood alternatives through sustainable, organic agriculture and meaningful technical assistance. 

COP30, held in Brazil and hosted in the Amazon for the first time, marked a turning point in global discussions on climate and development. Against this backdrop, NESsT has been working more intentionally to bring local realities from the Amazon into global debates around access to financing. We spoke with Cairo Bastos, Program Manager at NESsT Brazil, about his key takeaways from Belém, what it takes in practice to build development models rooted in local territories, and why financing for the Amazon is a topic that concerns taxpayers and citizens more broadly.