WISP

The Western Cape Industrial Symbiosis Programme (WISP) is a multiple award-winning free facilitation service to businesses, which is now funded by the City of Cape Town. Our WISP facilitators provide our business members with dedicated time and technical expertise, connecting companies with unused or residual resources such as materials, energy, water, assets, logistics and expertise. By sharing resources, our members:

• Cut costs and increase profit
• Improve their business processes
• Create new revenue streams
• Learn from us and each other
• Operate more sustainably

No company is too big or too small to benefit from WISP, and we work with members from different industries. For example, we've facilitated successful synergies in the food, textile and manufacturing industries. Membership is free regardless of sector, size or turnover.

How we work and our impact

We reach out to businesses and industry and set up meetings and site visits. The aims of these engagements are to ask a lot of questions, understand a business's operations and waste streams and, ultimately, to identify unused/underutilised resources. 

We capture this data into our secure online database, SYNERGie™ and we then work to identify potential matches between businesses in the network.

Thereafter, we facilitate engagements and resource exchanges between matched businesses. Our service is free and all we will ask is for your feedback on the financial, social and environmental benefits of the match.

To date WISP has facilitated over 220 synergies resulting in: 

• 132 566 tonnes of waste diverted from landfill;
• 309 200 fossil GHG emissions saved (equivalent to the electrical usage of 39 800 households in SA);
• Over R147 million generated in financial benefits (additional revenue, cost savings and private investments);
• 392 economic wide jobs created. 

For more about how we work, download the WISP infographic. 

Sock Manufacturing

The WISP story 2013 - 2017