Bamboo for Change

GreenPot Enterprises -  Restoring Land, Supporting Farmers, and Building Bioeconomies in Kenya

In Narok County, Kenya, a small company is envisioning the future of bamboo products. GreenPot Enterprises, hopes to create nearly half a million jobs, restore over 100,000 hectares of degraded land across 16 counties in Kenya, and provide low-carbon household products--including construction materials–-all with bamboo.

In June, the CSFEP team toured GreenPot Enterprises’ bamboo nurseries, plantations, and manufacturing space. Today, we are highlighting their work as an example of the potential for bioeconomies to drive land restoration in East Africa. 

Alstair Amendi discusses the land restoration opportunities provided by bamboo.

Land restoration is the heart of the model 

Founded in 2014, GreenPot Enterprises is a fully-integrated bamboo company. Smallholder farmers and local communities are at the heart of GreenPot’s model. In addition to planting bamboo on the 1,500 acres it owns in Narok, it also provides bamboo seedlings and training to small growers across 4,000 acres. With GreenPot’s support, farmers are cultivating bamboo, restoring degraded land, and supplementing their income.  Each bamboo plot protects against  soil erosion, and provides each farmer with a future income of USD 2000 per acre per year. 

In exchange for providing seedlings and training, GreenPot collects a portion of the harvested bamboo from the farmers. This tithe, along with its own bamboo harvest, supplies its factory operations in a mutually-beneficial model that supports both local livelihoods and environmental restoration.

In the GreenPot Enterprises factory in Narok, workers create bamboo toothpicks, skewers, and coffee stirrers. Soon, they hope to expand their product lines to include bamboo-based panels and particle board.

Bamboo-based construction materials made in Kenya

GreenPot’s Narok factory currently produces bamboo toothpicks, coffee stirrers, and skewers, offering a local source for household products. These common items-- typically imported into Kenya – can now instead be made locally. More importantly, they can be made from the very bamboo being used to restore local land.  

Soon, GreenPot hopes to secure funding to expand into the biobased construction market—adding factory capacity to produce bamboo-based floor panels and particle board. To make use of the whole bamboo stalk, GreenPot is planning to transform leftover bamboo material into biofuel.

Green Pot Enterprises staff explain to Climate Smart Forest Economy Program and Built by Nature staff how bamboo restoration can contribute to a healthier watershed.

Partners like GreenPot Enterprises are a critical part of climate smart forest economies. By focusing on restoring land by planting bamboo—which can then be harvested and processed into valuable products--Green Pot is demonstrating how profitable, regenerative bio-economies could actually drive land restoration. 

For GreenPot Enterprises and founder Caroline Kariuki, bamboo is more than a crop—it’s supporting environmental restoration, prosperity for rural farmers and communities, and regenerative bioeconomies–one stalk at a time.