With a focus on accelerating climate action TEDx Johannesburg 2025, held over two days in early November at NIROX Sculpture Park in the Cradle of Humankind, brought together leading changemakers to explore solutions to the climate crisis, under the theme of a greener, fairer, thriving future.
Among the speakers was Leanne Emery-Hunter, CEO of Tshikululu Social Investments. Addressing delegates, Emery-Hunter explored how South Africa can turn crises into opportunities for sustainable growth. She drew on Tshikululu’s experience with communities and the Just Energy Transition, highlighting the country’s extraordinary potential for adaptation, and the need for true resilience, which requires an aligning of human capability, innovation, and capital.
South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan, the country’s roadmap for moving from a coal-powered to a low-carbon economy, estimates that $98 billion will be needed over five years. “This doesn’t cover everything we will need to complete the transition, but it’s a good start,” Emery-Hunter said.
To date, around $11.5 billion has been pledged by partners including the UK, Germany, the US, and the EU. “But more than half of that is in the form of loans, which would need to be repaid; about a quarter is commercial investment seeking returns, and only about seven percent, less than $1 billion, is in the form of grants. That means, for every rand we raise for resilience, ninety-three cents must be repaid, often in foreign currency,” she explained. “That’s not resilience, that’s fragility, financed.”
In her keynote, Emery-Hunter outlined practical strategies for financing resilience, drawing on examples such as the Galápagos debt-for-nature swap, to show how catalytic capital and blended finance can unlock impactful projects at scale, driving environmental restoration, job creation, and economic stability.
In South Africa, the Green Outcomes Fund is a good example of this: an outcomes-based fund that blends government and donor grants with concessional loans to incentivise investment in ‘green’ small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs). A 100-million-rand public investment mobilised four times that in private capital, creating jobs and building resilience.
“Imagine it is 2040. Load-shedding is history, water flows, land regenerates, and cities run on clean energy. Communities once facing unemployment thrive through green enterprises: repairing, recycling and restoring. Our financial markets have evolved, and resilience is now a core metric, not an afterthought,” she said.
In this scenario, 15 years from now, she added that banks and pension funds would confidently back sustainable infrastructure, insurance would reward adaptation, and green finance would flow through strong local institutions. “Right now, resilience feels like our national personality – forged by challenge, ready for renewal. That’s the South Africa we could build if we learn to move from finite capital to infinite resilience.”
South Africa needs inclusive, climate-smart governance, capacity-building, and innovative financial models that truly empower communities. “A greener, fairer, and thriving South Africa is possible when capital meets capability with purpose and foresight,” Emery-Hunter said.
Tshikululu Social Investments is a leading South African social investment organisation. It partners with other social investors and stakeholders to design and implement high-impact social investment strategies, development programmes, and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) solutions aimed at addressing poverty, inequality, and unemployment across South Africa. Guided by the vision of a world where everyone has the opportunity to thrive, Tshikululu’s purpose is to harness the power of social investment to create valuable, lasting impact.
For more information visit: www.tshikululu.org.za.
