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Dear reader,
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The last year brought rough times - for Egypt and for SEKEM. Russia’s war against Ukraine and inflationary pressure on the local currency put the economy under stress and further exacerbated the food security issues in the country.
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Nevertheless, it was possible for SEKEM to reach all financial targets and proving once again it's resilience and strategic advantages of working according to ethical and regenerative principles.
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Additionally we can boast considerable progress in regard to our ambitious longterm goals. In the following we will also give you a short peak on just some of our 2022 highlights!
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We whish you a pleasent and inspiring read!
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Your SEKEM Public Relations Department - May [
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SVG#8 - „Rich and Resilient Biodiversity“ being one of them. At the Wahat desert farm, an Ecosystem Restoration Community was created by two volunteers. They started the „Green Heart Project“, an initiative to establish practical research in agricultural and ecosystem restoration methods.
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Also in Wahat an ambitious project in cooperation with Commonland was initiated, dedicated to the implementation of their "4 Returns Framework" in the entire Bahareya region. On top, SEKEM signed an Ecosystem Service Agreement with the Landbanking Group which marked the starting signal for our „Biodiversity Credits“. We believe they will be a holistic alternative to Carbon Credits in the future.
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Furthermore in the focus: SVG#9 - „Mitigation of Climate Change“. Perfect topic and opportunity to be prepared for the UN Climate Conference COP27 which took place in Sharm-el-Sheikh last year. Therefore the Economy of Love Announcement was launched, presenting an approach of upscaling sustainable agriculture among farmers all over Egypt. In total SEKEM, Heliopolis University, Economy of Love, the Egyptian Biodynamic Association (EBDA) and many of their national and international partners organized or attended more than 30 events at the conference, additionally inviting to Webinars, a Solutions Summit and a series of daily evening events under the roof of the previously founded Future Economy Forum.
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And we are able to announce measurable achievements in every category of the SVGs! This graph shows the progress for every single SVG.
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The number of employees* increased to 1,959 (2021: 1,904), whereof 26% were women (2021: 24%). In comparison: The average of female employment in Egypt was at 18% in 2022 (World bank).
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*SEKEM companies, Heliopolis University, SEKEM Development Foundation and EBDA
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Space of Culture established the Sexual Harassment Free Campus initiative to raise awareness and support students and employees who are confronted with sexual harassment.
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In cooperation with RDNA the Rural Development Center launched the Women Empowerment Project in the 13 Villages focused on training women for husbandry projects.
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The Training Academy and the Step Together Association provided training for school teachers addressing inclusive education to support students in complex life situations.
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The number of students in the school (355) and the Vocational Training Center (265) remained predominantly constant, whereas the number of students at Heliopolis University increased significantly to 2,777 (2021: 2533). Additionally, the number of external funded research projects increased from 26 to 30.
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Another Highlight: A total of 30,346 patients visited the Medical Center (2012: 29,411) and 100% of SEKEM employees benefited from the EcoHealth Insurance. To continue the „Health on Wheels“ projects that was established during the pandemic and provides medical services to people in the surrounding villages that are not able to visit the Medical Center, we still need a lot of support and help from our partners.
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Due to a decrease in local and export market demand that were caused by the tense macroeconomic situation, SEKEM’s industrial companies faced a decline in selling in most of the major product groups. But despite these challenges, SEKEM Holding Group showed a very good financial performance with 14% growth in revenues and was able to overachieve its targets on a consolidated level by 3%.The Total Net Revenue went up to 708 Mio. Egyptian Pounds (2021: 619 Mio EP) and the rate of 34% export sales could be kept.
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The area of cultivated land at the SEKEM farms increased from 323 ha (2021) to 473 ha. In total an area of 7,487 ha (2021: 7,152 ha) is now cultivated according to the standards of the Egyptian Biodynamic Association (Demeter Egypt). The number of planted trees on SEKEM land increased from 210k to 370k.
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In combination with compost production and renewable energy, 16.6k tons of CO2 could be sequestered (2021: 15k tons), whereas 3,8k tons of CO2 were emitted. This makes SEKEM not just carbon neutral but in comparison to its emissions a multiple carbon negative organisation. At the same time, the amount of water usage for irrigation decreased from 4.9k mio m3 to 4.0k mio m3 and the share of renewable energy from the total energy consumption almost doubled from 15% to 29% in just one year.
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We are sure, that SEKEMs approach of sustainable agriculture in combination with the further development of employees and research contributed also to this last good news: Thanks to a natural selection process the year before, we can see a huge six times increase in the number of bee hives: from 48 to 307!
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We hope you like our newsletter and would like to invite you to share it with your friends and network.
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SEKEM Head Office
3 Cairo Belbes Desert Road
P.O.Box 2834 El Horreya, Heliopolis
Cairo, Egypt
Tel.: 0020 2 265 88 124
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.sekem.com
News: www.sekem.com/en/news/
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