Engineering eco-friendly solutions

Carolina Guerra is a pioneering eco-entrepreneur from Colombia who turns hazardous waste into useful products. In October 2011, she won the prestigious Cartier Women’s Initiative Award for Latin America.

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Carolina Guerra set up her company, Ingerecuperar, in the city of Cali in western Colombia, in 2007. As its name suggests – inge for engineering, recuperar for recovery – the company engineers solutions to recover waste, but not just any kind of waste, specifically the hazardous type. “First, we research the best way to tackle the waste in question. Then we apply the process to re-use it, on an industrial scale,” says Guerra.

Carolina Guerra | Photo courtesy of Cartier Women's Initiative

The idea for Ingerecuperar came from Guerra’s former job at a company that generated aluminium dross, the residual waste material that is produced from any process in which aluminium is melted. “Despite our attempts to find a way to dispose of it all in an environmentally friendly manner, nobody in Colombia could provide one! Other firms have come up with solutions to recycle the metallic parts of the waste, but not the rest of it.”

A good opportunity

Guerra decided to join forces with two colleagues to research how to make use of the dross in its entirety. ‘The results were excellent! Given how much aluminium dross is generated in our region, we saw a good opportunity for a useful business.’

Guerra’s company managed to clinch the only environmental licence in the country to use aluminium dross in recycling. The initiative is an important step in the struggle to deal appropriately with hazardous waste in Colombia.

As Guerra explains, “There is an extensive legislation in Colombia against hazardous waste, and little by little, industries that generate waste are becoming aware of the importance of complying with legislation and are handling the hazardous waste in an appropriate way. Nevertheless, a high percentage of industrial businesses are still unaware of the damage that can be done in rivers and in the wider environment. And then there are other companies that don’t comply with environmental legislation related to waste because they lack resources.”

Win-win alternative

Guerra’s company offers a win-win alternative. “In our country, one solution for this kind of waste is to deliver it to hazardous waste disposal sites, which charge up to US$700 per ton to dispose of it. Some companies find less ethical solutions, others even give it away. But we pay for it as a valuable commodity!”

Securing the environmental licence to recycle the aluminium dross was no mean feat. “It took a great deal of patience to convince the authorities,” says Guerra, “because this was such a novel solution here.”

Ingerecuperar now has 10 full-time employees, and in 2010 it recycled 195 tons of aluminium dross, a figure that doubled in the first half of 2011 alone. The company uses parts of the aluminium dross to produce a form of cement which it uses to manufacture building blocks, benches, and fence posts.

With Colombia producing an estimated 500,000 tons of hazardous waste each year, Guerra is embarking on other avenues of research and engineered solutions. These include projects to recycle incinerator ash, found for example in furnaces that burn hospital waste, and ‘pipeline powder’- the dust that is extracted from industrial pipelines and is collected in filters. “It’s very dangerous,” says Guerra, “because it’s full of heavy metals.”

Role of the authorities

The control of hazardous waste in Colombia is the responsibility of two environmental authorities. As Guerra explains, “On the one hand, there is the Ministry of Environment, which is usually dedicated to issuing legislation, and on the other, there are the Regional Autonomous Corporations (Corporaciones Autónomas Regionales), which are supposed to enforce the legislation. However, the Corporations complain about having neither the resources nor the personnel to monitor all the companies, and therefore, many companies fail to comply with legislation but are not punished.”

Asked what she would like to change to improve the business environment, Guerra is clear. “I would request more support from the government to small companies, like ours that are just starting out and are helping the environment – reducing taxes and giving assistance. And I would like to see an improvement in the performance of the Corporations so they could really force the hazardous waste-generating industries to deliver their wastes to companies like us.”

As for wider business awareness of the concept of green industry, Guerra says there is much to be done. “This concept of green industry has barely entered the minds of most entrepreneurs. It’s very difficult for small entrepreneurs, who have to struggle for their survival every day, to implement green actions in their businesses. It is only the big companies that are taking on these issues.”

On being a businesswoman

Guerra says she does not face much gender discrimination but does remember one incident in particular. A supplier whose contract hadn’t been renewed called to convince Ingerecuperar to reinstate him, but he wasn’t making himself clear. “When I asked him to explain, he lost his temper, and demanded to talk to the boss, saying he refused to justify himself to a secretary. Then, he threatened to get me fired for being rude and hung up!”

Regarding the situation of female entrepreneurs in Colombia in general, Guerra says, “It’s not very different to the situation of men. Doing business is very hard in our country for men and women. I have faced situations when a man doesn’t want to negotiate with me because of the fact that I am a woman, but this is not very usual.” ■

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The Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards are an international business plan competition created in 2006 by Cartier, the Women’s Forum, McKinsey & Company and INSEAD business school. The Awards aim to encourage the most vulnerable category of entrepreneurs in their most vulnerable phase: women entrepreneurs starting up.

Each year, a jury selects 18 finalists from over 1,000 entrants – the top three projects from six regions (Latin America, North America, Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Asia-Pacific)- on the basis of their short business plans. The finalists are then invited to France for the final round of competition, which includes presenting a detailed business plan in front of the jury.

Based on the quality of the plan and their ability to demonstrate exceptional creativity, financial sustainability, and social impact, one Laureate from each of the six regions is selected. Each of the six Laureates receives the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards trophy, one year of personalized coaching, and US$20,000 of funding.