Growing Green Businesses: How Entrepreneurs Are Helping Safeguard Cambodia’s Forests

Through the SAFE Forest Restoration Incubation Program, we’re nurturing forest-positive businesses. From sustainable tourism to forest-friendly products, these 15 ventures are redefining the role of business in environmental protection.

Annika Freudenberger

October 17, 2024

Some of the SAFE incubation program entrepreneurs with community partners during the program field trip to Kampong Thom.

“When I first joined this program, my business was just an idea,” reflects Chea Sophanuth. Formerly an outdoor facilitator and tour leader, he’s had a lifelong passion for hiking, cycling, and camping. His dream? “I wanted to build my own business that gives me the chance to share my love of nature with others.”

And that’s exactly what he did. Accelerated by business training, mentorship, and other support through the SAFE Forest Restoration Incubation Program, Sophanuth launched Cambo Adventure just a few months ago. His weekends are now spent doing what he loves best: leading unique trips for adventurous travelers into Cambodia’s forests. Through eco-tourism, his goal is to inspire his clients to care more about forest protection while supporting local community hosts.

Cambo Adventure’s Sophanuth during the SAFE incubation program field trip

Entrepreneurship Meets Environmental Stewardship

Entrepreneurship and forests — it’s not the most common pairing! Indeed, in many countries (including Cambodia), business is often linked to deforestation as natural ecosystems are cleared for agriculture, resource extraction, and construction.

That’s exactly what the SAFE Forest Restoration Incubation Program is working to change. Businesses actually play a huge role in environmental protection, and entrepreneurship is everywhere in the forest sector, if you know where to look.

Take the 15 entrepreneurs in the program: a few, like EPL Pollinate and the Cambodian Honey Association, are harvesting and processing wild forest honey — valorizing a local resource, helping set industry standards for wild honey, encouraging forest-positive livelihoods, and protecting critical biodiversity. Others, like Cambo Adventure, Kamboo Ecotourism, and Banteay Srey Butterfly Center, are showing how more sustainable forms of tourism can benefit people and planet. Some entrepreneurs in the cohort are producing unique products from non-timber forest products; some are supporting sustainable agriculture intensification in forest-adjacent communities to prevent encroachment into protected areas; others are piloting public awareness strategies to drive interest in forest protection among Cambodian youth.

An Incubation Program for Forest-Positive Businesses

Between April and October 2024, we were lucky enough to get to know these inspiring entrepreneurs through the SAFE incubation program. The program was a unique collaboration: supported by the UN Environment Programme and Korea Forest Service, with a curriculum designed by the global organization Bridge for Billions, and implemented in Cambodia by Impact Hub Phnom Penh. It’s part of the multi-year, multi-country Sustaining an Abundance of Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) Initiative. (Parallel programs were implemented in Laos by XMTechnovator and in Vietnam by IID.)

The entrepreneurs underwent a rigorous, 8-module business course on the Bridge for Billions platform, which blended fundamental business concepts with applied exercises to help entrepreneurs define their value proposition, refine their business model, calculate financial projections, make an impact plan, and more.

Each entrepreneur was paired with a mentor who guided them through the curriculum and helped them troubleshoot their business challenges. We also facilitated group reflection sessions, invited successful entrepreneurs and experts to speak with the cohort, and organized an immersive 3-day field visit to forest communities in Kampong Thom province.

Scaling Up Sustainable Forest Products

One of the inspiring businesses we got to know well during the program was 3CORsECO. Explains co-founder Chhim Chhouden, “I decided to join the SAFE incubation program to prepare for scaling up in the market.” 3CORsECO is a rapidly growing business that harvests and processes cashew nuts and provides income generation opportunities to Kui Indigenous communities in central Cambodia. “I wanted to develop a solid business plan and strengthen my business for further growth. Because the program provided a structured learning curriculum, it helped me make my ideas for my business more realistic and forward-looking.”

Chhoudden and his team are now working to expand a new product line: harvesting, processing, and selling nuts of the Chombok tree, sometimes called wild almonds. In his years building up 3CORsECO and working with forest communities, he saw a persistent problem: to make more income, people were burning the Chombok tree for charcoal. So Chhouden decided to leverage his experience in cashew nut production to collaborate with local community members to harvest Chombok nuts — income that relies on the forest surviving, rather than being cut down.

Celebrating Success: Closing Event and Next Steps

After a mostly-virtual program, we were thrilled to bring together the entrepreneurs, mentors, and invited experts for a closing event in Phnom Penh. Entrepreneurs pitched to the audience, we showcased many of their products (including cakes and “almond” croissants baked by 3CORsECO’s partners, using their Chombok nuts!), and facilitated World Cafe discussions on how startups and MSMEs can strengthen their environmental and social impact in the forest sector.

Our journey with this group of entrepreneurs may now be over… but we’re excited that in early 2025, we will launch the second cohort of the SAFE incubation program!

If you are an entrepreneur working in forest protection, or want to join our impact as a mentor, or have a business in mind to refer, please get in touch! Interested in connecting with any of the entrepreneurs in our first cohort? Reach out!