Sustainability & CSR
Build lighter. Hire local. Bring people home.
Our environmental commitments and our responsibility to the communities we work in, in plain language.
Sustainability
What we do differently in how we build, power and run things.
85 kW
Solar installed at Kent
47 t
CO₂e avoided each year
500+
Trees planted since 2021
80%
Solar power at our Freetown HQ
Building
Walls from the ground they stand on
Kent’s walls are pressed from site soil with 8–10% cement: about 54.5 kg CO₂ per m³ of wall against 642.9 kg for fired clay brick. No kiln, no firing.
Energy
85 kW of solar at Kent
5 kW per home and 10 kW for the community carry every essential load 24 hours a day, avoiding about 47 tonnes of CO₂e a year against diesel.
Energy
An HQ that runs on the sun
Our head office in Freetown runs on 80% solar power.
Water and waste
Wells, biodigesters, compost
Local wells and a borehole give 24/7 water. Biodigesters replace septic tanks, turning waste into fertiliser and cooking gas. Plastic and glass are separated; kitchen waste is composted.
Land
From bare ground to garden
More than 500 trees and 500 flowering plants since 2021, and a shared vegetable garden that supplies the restaurant.
Local content
Made in Sierra Leone
All doors and windows, about 90% of visible timber (Acacia mangium from Tonkolili) and about 90% of furniture are made by Sierra Leonean craftspeople.
What we do not claim
The Eco-Living Oasis at Kent is not carbon neutral, and we publish the gap rather than hide it. Solar removed the need for round-the-clock diesel, but a generator still runs in two short daily windows. When the national grid reaches Kent, the generator drops to true backup.
Corporate social responsibility
How our work is meant to leave people and places better off.
30%+
Of profits given back
50,000+
Students using our donated content
$30,000+
Equipment donated to schools, 2020–2024
A social enterprise
We give back more than 30% of our profits to underserved communities.
50,000+ students learning
Together with DSTI, UNICEF and MBSSE, more than 50,000 students are preparing for NPSE, BECE and WASSCE with digital content we donated to the Sierra Leone Learning Passport.
Bo Innovation Hub
Pupils and youth in Bo are learning and creating at the innovation hub we sponsored and helped establish.
Recurring partners
The Kidney Savers Foundation, Sierra Leone Missions and Development, The Village Link and OPWA receive our recurring financial and technological support to deliver their projects.
Library-in-a-box
With The Village Link we deliver a solar-powered, open-education digital library in a box to schools in Sierra Leone.
Equipping schools
Between 2020 and 2024 we donated furniture, musical instruments, projectors, desktop computers and other equipment worth more than $30,000 to the Prince of Wales School and Methodist Boys High School.
A crew, not day labour
At Kent a permanent, trained crew was hired on day one and kept for five years — housed, fed and given medical care — and can now train the crew for the next community.