Founded in 2013, the purpose of the GreenMatter Partnership (GreenMatter) is to contribute to the establishment of a socially equitable and skilled cadre of environmentally focused leaders, professionals, practitioners, researchers and businesspeople.. It does this in the context of the need to urgently address significant environmental degradation and associated climate change impacts encountered in South Africa and globally.

Such human capital development imperatives are laid out in the Biodiversity Human Capital Development Strategy 2010-2030 put forward by SANBI and the Lewis Foundation and implemented by a suite of partners under the GreenMatter cause brand. The strategy has achieved a number of impressive successes since 2010, making headway with attracting more black South Africans to pursue research and study in the Biodiversity Sector and implementing some critical programmes. After a review process conducted in 2020, the updated BHCDS implementation plan was drafted in 2022 and has now been adopted by the DFFE, SANBI and DSI. Despite these key shifts, the success of the strategy still relies heavily on agile partners such as NGO’s, private sector, and funders who are needed to play their role in coordination, implementation and further resourcing; Partnerships within the sector are a key element moving forward.

This GreenMatter project supported by the Lewis Foundation will focus on leading the design of a multi-stakeholder collaborative programme of work to implement critical aspects of the post-2020 BHDCS.  The work will reposition GreenMatter as a leading advocacy and coordination agent and agile partner of the BHCDS going forward. There are three major outcomes and outputs of the project including:  

1. GreenMatter will coordinate and convene sector partners to develop a 5 year programme of work.
2. GreenMatter will initiate a Skills Intelligence Hub which will form the basis of BHCDS work in the future
3. GreenMatter will advocate for and ensure processes that will expand, revive and strengthen partnerships in the Environmental Sector.

The ultimate vision of this work is to reignite a joined-up sector with organizations working together strategically to implement the BHCDS and other sector skills plans.