Conservation Watch

They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, but in the Maddens household, it figuratively did.

Back in the 1970s, Pieter Maddens presented his envoy credentials to then-President Jomo Kenyatta. Years later, his son Peter would complete high school at St. Mary's School, where his classmate happened to be the president’s son—Uhuru Kenyatta. Fast forward, in a rare alignment of fortune, on September 2021, Peter Maddens would present his own credentials to that very classmate, now the fourth President of Kenya.

As intriguing as this tale is, it wasn't the reason Business Daily sought out the Ambassador to Kenya, Comoros, Eritrea, Madagascar, Seychelles, Somalia—and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Offices in Nairobi. Our interest was piqued by his concerted effort to turn the Belgian Embassy in Kenya into a carbon-neutral compound. This followed a passionate speech he delivered as chief guest during the launch of the first Electric Vehicle (EV) to participate in the Rhino Charge, an annual off-road competition now in its 36th edition.

Taking inspiration from his son, a climate activist, Ambassador Maddens notes that he hasn’t personally owned a vehicle since 2008—aside from the one assigned for official duties. In Belgium, he cycles, carpools, or uses public transport. It is this consciousness that he brought with him to Nairobi—and to the very compound he grew up in—that sparked what he describes as his “little big thing”.

As part of his initial duties—engaging with diplomats, politicians, civil society, business leaders, and the Belgian diaspora of around 600 individuals—he encountered several inspiring initiatives. One such standout was Emboo Camp, a carbon-neutral safari lodge in the Maasai Mara founded in 2019 by Valery Super and Loïc Amado.

After visiting Emboo and learning about its systems, H.E. Maddens wondered if the same could be replicated at the embassy. With 700 meters of flat roof ideal for solar, similar acreage but with an an incline ideal for tapping water using gravity, and a climate suited for agriculture, the idea took root. A proposal was pitched to the Foreign Ministry in Brussels, who—commendably—were open to experimenting. Construction began in October 2023. By February 2024, after an investment of €350,000, the Embassy of Belgium in Kenya became the first net-zero Belgian embassy globally, with an ambitious goal to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions.

To achieve this, the embassy installed a 60kVA solar power system, with panels mounted on both roofs. These panels power the building during the day while charging a battery pack for nighttime use. Kenya Power’s main grid serves as a backup, even as Maddens is quick to note that Kenya already generates most of its electricity sustainably. He argues that if more users adopted green energy, the national grid would become more stable—and blackouts could be a thing of the past.

Last year, the Flipflopi Dhow took its maiden Lake Victoria voyage. The Flipflopi was built. Built according to traditional techniques on the island of Lamu, the Flipflopi is made entirely from recycled plastic collected along the Kenya coast- over ten tonnes of plastic waste. Around 30, 000 repurposed flipflops gave the boat its striking multi-coloured finish. The dhow was built over two years and in 2018 sailed from Lamu to Zanzibar. The voyage took three weeks and the dhow’s innovative crew stopped in villages along the way, raising awareness to the calamity caused by plastic pollution. Global plastic production is around 311 million tonnes a year, of which about 12.2 million tonnes finds its way into our seas. Plastic doesn’t bio-degrade; it just breaks into smaller pieces. This means that at our current production rate, by 2050, the ratio of plastic to fish in our seas will be 1:1 and 99 per cent of seabirds will have plastic in their bodies. Since its momentous Lamu-to-Zanzibar voyage, the dhow has been on display at the Kenya Wildlife Service headquarters at the Nairobi National Park. During the circumnavigation of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, the crew stopped in villages along the way, raising awareness of plastic pollution to the lakeside communities of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Not content with these ground-breaking projects, the Flipflopi team has been instrumental in several spin-offs.Kwale Plastics Plus Collections (KPPC) of Diani started with land donated by the Flipflopi team. KPPC now organises beach clean-ups and waste collection in the Kwale region including Diani and Ukunda. Since 2018 they have installed 35 Green Stations where people can drop waste for recycling, and their depot sorts plastic, glass, metal and paper waste and uses each to produce different recycled goods. By inspiring people to dispose of waste properly, the team aims to clean up our land and rivers, beaches and ocean.