Kenya's waste management and circularity sector is rapidly emerging as a critical area for sustainable investment. Across the ten sub-sectors and 122 businesses identified within this space in KOIS and ANDE’s Introductory Guide to Investing in the Waste and Circularity Sector in Kenya , four key sub-sectors have demonstrated particularly high potential for investment. Those sub-sectors are organic waste, plastic waste, wastewater, and integrated waste management. This investment guide outlines the complex landscape of the sector, highlighting critical financing needs and investment strategies. While detailed deep-dive guides have been developed to explore each of the four key subsectors, this guide focuses on the financial dynamics that underpin successful investments. It examines the varying financing needs across the different stages of business maturity and sub-sectors. Moreover, it highlights the key factors of success for waste management and circularity businesses, investment trends, gaps and opportunities for innovative finance solutions that could shape the sector. Finally, this guide provides insights into how investors can strategically position themselves and better catalyse investment to grow the sector.

Kenya generates substantial volumes of wastewater from domestic, industrial and agricultural sources — amounting to 800 million litres per day from domestic use alone.2 The country faces significant challenges in managing this wastewater effectively, which increases pressure on limited local freshwater resources. For instance, only 30% of the 400 million litres of wastewater generated daily in Nairobi undergoes treatment, and only 5% of wastewater from offsite sanitation management (OSM) is effectively treated because of failures in the sewage system, a lack of treatment infrastructure and facilities operating below capacity. These problems are exacerbated as transport trucks resort to illegal dumping in nature due to high discharge costs. As wastewater contains contaminants such as chemicals, oils and human waste, this results in heavy pollution of water bodies, endangering aquatic ecosystems and public health. This study employed a mixed-methods approach to conduct a deep dive into the wastewater management sub-sector in Kenya. Our study identified 27 active businesses in this field, including a few growth-stage businesses which have achieved scale through innovation, acquisition of effective technologies, and establishing strategic partnerships, such as the Fresh Life partnership with Regen Organics to convert waste collected by Fresh Life.