U.S. companies honored for advancing equity and opportunity
Beekeepers in Togo once threw away beeswax as a useless byproduct of honey production. Now, thanks to the innovative techniques of the firm Koster Keunen, beekeepers like Pitassa Hélène, of Titigbe, Togo, are selling beeswax from their hives for use as ingredients in cosmetics and other products.
“Beekeeping is giving my family two kinds of income,” says Hélène, who sells honey and supplies beeswax to Koster Keunen. “I am glad that I can be a beekeeper. I can make some money as a woman,” she says in a video on the firm’s website . “It gives me freedom to work and take care of my family,” she adds. “And I can send my children to the school so they can learn.”
She is one of 29,000 beekeepers Koster Keunen has trained in sustainable beeswax harvesting techniques through a partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development. By 2025, the partnership aims to train 50,000 beekeepers across Benin, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Nigeria and Togo.
Koster Keunen received the 2024 Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE) for its support of beekeepers in west Africa. The multinational firm with branches in the United States and the Netherlands is one of six companies to win the U.S. Department of State’s 2024 ACE Award for promoting high standards in their work around the world.
The other winners of 2024 ACE Awards are:
- Parker Clay, a leather goods company, has a factory in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that employs 200 workers, 80% of whom are women, including many survivors of human trafficking. The company, based in California and Delaware, prioritizes a living wage and safe workplaces through sustainable production in Ethiopia.
- Bank of America in India advances women’s participation in India’s corporate workplaces. The company’s social initiatives focus on women’s education and skill development, as well as water, sanitation, energy and other infrastructure projects and have transformed the lives of 300,000 women and girls in India.
- Microsoft Colombia Incorporated works with local businesses and nonprofits to expand internet access and digital skills to create economic opportunity in underserved communities.
- Newmont Corporation, a Colorado-based mining company with operations in Suriname, invests in environmental conservation, as well as education, health care and economic opportunity, particularly in Indigenous communities.
- Rizome, based in Bradenton, Florida, is pioneering use of engineered bamboo to reduce deforestation and advance sustainable construction in the Philippines and beyond.
Rizome works with farmers in the Philippines to harvest and engineer bamboo for use in building homes. A form of grass, bamboo matures faster than trees and planting bamboo for future construction absorbs carbon from the atmosphere while reducing the need to cut down trees, the company says.
“It’s a virtuous cycle,” Rizome chief executive officer Russell Smith told Business Observer . “When we harvest those poles, that carbon gets locked in that building,” he says, noting a home built with bamboo can last 100 years.
The company includes women-owned businesses in its supply chain and has built partnerships with 15 Indigenous tribes on the Philippine island of Mindanao.
“We think [engineered bamboo] should be mainstream,” said Andy Locsin, whose father’s design firm in the Philippines, Leandro V. Locsin Partners Company, works with Rizome to advance bamboo’s use in construction. “It’s incredible stuff. And it’s good for the planet.”
