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ATREE
Bengaluru
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) is a global non-profit organization that generates interdisciplinary knowledge to inform policy and practice towards conservation and sustainability. For over two decades, ATREE has worked on social-environmental issues from local to global policy levels. ATREE envisions a society committed to environmental conservation and sustainable and socially just development.
nt.
Duration of Support
Partner since 2020
SVP Lead Partners
Abubaker Koya, Anjana Kaul, Pradeep Grama, Sashi Rajamani, Kusum Pai
Duration of Support
Partner since 2020
SVP Lead Partners
Abubaker Koya, Anjana Kaul, Pradeep Grama, Sashi Rajamani, Kusum Pai
< Back |
Home » Our Investees » ATREE
ATREE
Bengaluru
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) is a global non-profit organization that generates interdisciplinary knowledge to inform policy and practice towards conservation and sustainability. For over two decades, ATREE has worked on social-environmental issues from local to global policy levels. ATREE envisions a society committed to environmental conservation and sustainable and socially just development.
nt.
Duration of Support
Partner since 2020
SVP Lead Partners
Abubaker Koya, Anjana Kaul, Pradeep Grama, Sashi Rajamani, Kusum Pai
SVP-ATREE Partnership
ATREE’s proposal is to help tribal people turn the invasive species of lantana into furniture they can sell. The idea is to provide a more sustainable alternative to bamboo and cane furniture while providing livelihoods and removing an invasive species from the forest in the process.
SVP is supporting ATREE to create a business model for forest communities around lantana. This includes product & process innovation in addition to user testing, market testing, marketing, branding and communication. The partnership has resulted in significant innovation, the creation of a new category of customers and users and sustainable livelihoods for the Soliga tribal population. Other Products Innovated are particle board, Gasifier, Bio Bricks etc which may open additional livelihood opportunities. Growing with partnerships – Collaboration with Kaiyare , ADP and Kadaipai (They had their own existing teams doing other products, and were happy to learn Lantana).
Story of success
SVP opened up access to a wide network of potential market connections and knowledge centres. A consistent exchange of learnings helped us to curate the potential business model. For this first of its kind project, SVP support has been critical in codifying learnings and accessing partnerships to scale.
Events like the GiveIndia campaign and Christmas/New year sale gave a big platform to showcase our work. We were able to give the artisans a good apprenticeship with design houses like Purple Turtle and Iobject. This exposed them to new designs and they developed a customer-centric approach. Armed with new skills, they successfully fulfilled bulk corporate orders and custom furniture orders from resorts across India.
We have now registered around 150 members into the craft centre, given direct employment opportunities to 110 members, trained 57 new members in lantana craft (40% women) and designed 7 new models of furniture by clearing an area equivalent to 111 HA of lantana cover.