Original by Lucas Simons, 16 Jan 2026: “Een goede transitie financier is ook een goede tuinman” adapted for South African context by Andrea Viviers, 10 March 2026
A good transition financier is also a good gardener
Imagine a passionate gardener: someone with a deep appreciation for nature who enthusiastically plants flower bulbs of rare, promising flowers. They carefully select the best varieties from innovative growers, plant them in the soil, and wait eagerly. But soon it becomes clear: many of the flowers do not grow, or they die shortly after appearing above the ground. Not because the bulbs are bad, but because the soil is poor, the pH is unbalanced, the sun too strong, the wind too harsh. There is too much weed, too little shade or protection, and insects eat the buds before they can bloom.
An experienced gardener knows: the problem is not the flower. It is the garden, the conditions in which the flowers must grow. A good gardener therefore works on the soil structure, improves water management, installs windbreaks, introduces pollinators, plants shade plants, removes weeds, and adds compost. Only when the environment is right can the flower truly bloom.
Promising companies, but in imperfect soil
In the world of sustainable finance, many development banks, public financiers, commercial banks, impact investors, and blended-finance facilities are helping to back promising businesses and projects in sectors such as plastic recycling, electric mobility, regenerative agriculture, alternative proteins, bio-based materials, and lower-carbon construction materials. South Africa already shows many examples of these emerging “flowers”.
- Electric bus deployment led by Golden Arrow Bus Services in Cape Town is a prominent example. The company has begun introducing electric buses and charging infrastructure as part of a long-term shift toward cleaner public transport.
- In the circular economy, producer responsibility schemes such as PETCO help enable large-scale packaging recovery and recycling systems by coordinating producers, recyclers, and collection networks. This kind of ecosystem infrastructure is essential for circular solutions to function at scale.
- South Africa also hosts innovators in plant-based foods, such as Fry’s Family Food, and growing experimentation around lower-carbon construction materials, with cement producers exploring ways to reduce emissions in one of the country’s most carbon-intensive industries.
- In agriculture, a growing number of initiatives support farmers experimenting with soil-restoring and climate-resilient farming practices, often backed by environmental trusts, NGOs, and sustainability programs.
These examples illustrate an important point: South Africa has strong entrepreneurial capacity, increasing investor interest in the green economy, and a growing policy focus on the country’s long-term transition.
But just as in gardening, promising flowers do not always grow easily.
When the ecosystem is still developing
Consider the transition to electric public transport. Golden Arrow’s rollout demonstrates that electric buses can work in South African conditions and that serious deployment is now underway. But scaling such solutions remains complex. The barriers are not primarily about whether the technology works. Instead, they relate to the surrounding conditions: high upfront capital costs, electricity-system constraints, charging infrastructure requirements, and the fact that the broader electric-mobility ecosystem is still emerging.
A similar dynamic exists in plastics recycling. South Africa has made real progress with extended producer responsibility and recycling initiatives, and collection rates for some packaging streams are improving. But recyclers and circular-economy businesses can still face volatile feedstock supply, competition from cheaper virgin materials, and limited markets for recycled content.
In agriculture, regenerative or climate-resilient farming approaches also face practical hurdles. Farmers experimenting with new practices can struggle with access to suitable finance, limited market premiums for sustainable production, and supply chains that are still structured around conventional farming systems.
In many cases, therefore, the challenge is not the technology, the entrepreneur, or the vision. The challenge is that the ecosystem around them is still developing. South Africa’s economy, like many others, has been shaped over decades by infrastructure, regulation, and business models built around more linear and fossil-intensive systems. The transition is well underway, but the enabling conditions for newer solutions are still evolving.
Structural barriers that transitions can face
Companies working on sustainable solutions can encounter structural barriers such as:
- Fragmented policy environments, where climate, industrial, agricultural, and energy policies do not always move at the same speed or in the same direction.
- Incomplete pricing of environmental costs, which can allow more carbon-intensive models to retain cost advantages.
- Uneven market demand, where buyers may prioritise lowest upfront cost over long-term sustainability value.
- Higher perceived or actual risk, especially for newer technologies and business models where infrastructure, policy certainty, or offtake arrangements are still developing.
- Regulatory systems originally designed for incumbent industries, which can slow down new circular or low-carbon models.
- Infrastructure gaps, such as limited charging networks, recycling capacity, or reverse logistics.
- Supply chains that evolve at different speeds, where one actor innovates but the rest of the value chain has not yet adapted.
In short: the soil is improving, but it is not yet equally fertile everywhere.
An investor who is also a garden architect
A good transition financier therefore does not only look at individual investments. It also considers the wider garden. Beyond assessing risk, return, and impact at the project or company level, transition finance increasingly requires an understanding of ecosystems: policy direction, infrastructure readiness, value-chain coordination, market demand, and the sequencing of public and private capital. Anyone serious about financing transitions cannot avoid developing a transition strategy. At the same time, finance itself can play a catalytic role by crowding in public support, signalling demand, and accelerating ecosystem development. When public instruments and private capital are better aligned, funding becomes more effective. It does not only finance projects and pilots; it can also:
- nourish pioneers,
- facilitate scaling,
- and ultimately help transform systems.
In that sense, transition finance embedded within a broader transition strategy delivers not only returns, but also direction, acceleration, and efficiency.
TransMission as an approach to designing the ecosystem
This is where the TransMission approach can contribute. TransMission does not only help identify promising companies or technologies; it helps map and design the broader ecosystem in which they operate. It acts as a coordination mechanism that helps stakeholders understand:
- what needs to happen,
- when it needs to happen,
- and who needs to do what.
The model identifies five phases through which sectors typically transition:
- Breaking inertia, creating urgency and awareness
- Vision and pilots, investing in pioneers and experimentation
- Organising competition, market creation, standards, and incentives
- Synergy and collaboration, value-chain coordination and scaling
- Institutionalisation, regulation, oversight, and financing structures
For financiers, the benefits are clear:
- Lower risk, because companies perform better in supportive ecosystems
- Stronger return potential, as investments reinforce each other rather than remaining isolated
- More impact per rand, because system change enables replication and scale
- New opportunities, as healthy ecosystems attract new entrepreneurs and investors
A good gardener knows: there is no bloom without healthy soil. And a good transition financier knows that system change is not a side activity, it is part of the investment.