Nedbank and Avo Vision are turning invasive alien trees into jobs, businesses and water security for one of the Eastern Cape’s most vital catchments.
In the hills around Matatiele in the Eastern Cape, invasive alien trees have spread across the landscape for decades, consuming vast amounts of water in a region that can’t spare it.
The area falls within the Umzimvubu Strategic Water Source Area, one of South Africa’s most important water catchments, which feeds rivers that communities around Matatiele rely on. Today, thanks to a partnership between Nedbank and the Avo Vision Foundation, those alien invasive trees are becoming the raw material for a whole new rural economy.
Avo Vision works in Matatiele, turning environmental restoration into green business opportunity. The model supports local entrepreneurs to clear invasive alien trees, restore indigenous vegetation, and channel the biomass into a growing charcoal value chain, giving them a product to build businesses on while the land and water supply are helped to recover.
In August 2025, Nedbank formalised its support for this work, committing R10 million through its Social Impact Unit to the Matatiele Green Ventures Incubation Programme.
The goal was to launch up to 25 black-owned, rural, green small businesses, train the people of Matatiele in the skills those businesses need, and build a sustainable system for the ongoing removal of invasive trees.
A year into the programme, the results already prove the positive impact. The investment has helped support 24 enterprises - close to the full target - creating 120 jobs and 26 skills development opportunities along the way. Those enterprises have generated R1.27 million in revenue, while 224.1 hectares of invasive alien plants have been cleared and an estimated 224 100 kilolitres of water saved for the catchment.
Poovi Pillay, Executive Head of Nedbank’s Social Impact Unit, says the decision to partner with Avo Vision came down to the fact that their model does not separate environmental restoration from economic opportunity. It treats them as the same problem.
“This is exactly the kind of work our Social Impact Unit was created to fund,” Pillay explains.
“We don’t just write a cheque and walk away. We support entrepreneurs through skills development, market access and a funding continuum that helps them grow from early-stage ventures into sustainable, commercial businesses.”
The approach forms part of Nedbank’s wider Green Economy Strategy, which focuses the bank’s impact investment on four areas where the need is greatest and the potential for impact is strongest, namely water and sanitation, renewable energy, waste and recycling and regenerative agriculture.
Matatiele Green Ventures touches on nearly all of these once, restoring water security while building an agriculture-linked, biomass economy from the ground up. It’s one of a growing number of partnerships through which Nedbank is putting its Green Economy social impact strategy into practice.
For the people of Matatiele, the impact goes well beyond numbers on a spreadsheet. The programme is training local residents in land restoration and enterprise skills, giving them the tools to build businesses in a region where formal job opportunities have long been scarce. And Pillay highlights that the benefits ripple outwards.
“By removing invasive species and restoring indigenous vegetation, this work improves water flow and quality, not only for the people in Matatiele, but for communities downstream,” he says.
“That is what a good green economy investment should do - create local opportunity with impact that reaches far beyond where the work actually happens.”
It is still early days, but Matatiele Green Ventures already shows what the right partnership and the right funding can do for a community that has spent years losing water and land to invasive trees.
With the initial target for business establishment already reached, and the model for a viable charcoal economy now well proven, Nedbank and Avo Vision are already looking at ways to bring the many benefits of this approach to other rural, water-stressed regions and communities across the country.