This month, P-Plus, a magazine for Corporate Social Responsibility in the Netherlands, published a special edition on FMO’s NL Business projects:
“In a relatively short time, FMO’s subsidiary already has 45 projects in the pipeline. NL Business gives advice to Dutch enterprises wanting to start activities in developing countries. “More than half of the projects in our portfolio are aimed at the water sector”, says team leader Aart Mulder. Too often, promising projects in emerging markets fail because of lack of financial support at the starting phase. FMO aims to close this ‘pioneer gap’ through new subsidiary NL Business, which works in close cooperation with Netherlands Water Partnership and Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland.”
P-Plus also highlights one NL Business project in India: the INDUS-coalition on rice straw:
“The burning of agricultural residual material like rice straw in open fields causes a lot of environmental damage and health problems throughout India. But rice straw is a potentially valuable raw material for many products. MVO Nederland brings together Dutch and Indian parties looking for advanced applications and recycling. Furniture giant Ikea is interested in an end product where rice straw is pressed into panels. FMO's NL Business is available for financing promising pilots and startups.”
Read the whole P-Plus special issue (in Dutch) on NL Business here: http://www.p-plus.nl/resources/articlefiles/NLBusinessFMO.pdf
