Exclusive interview with Nomathemba Mhlanga, Chief Sustainability Officer, Coega, an official sponsor at the upcoming Africa’s Green Economy Summit in Cape Town.
Interview Summary:
Nomathemba Mhlanga, Chief Sustainability Officer at the Coega Development Corporation, brings over 20 years of experience in sustainability across engineering, multilateral and corporate sectors.
She positions Coega’s Special Economic Zone (SEZ) as a leader in green industrialisation, anchored in a comprehensive Climate Response Plan and the Eco-Industrial Park model, which promotes industrial symbiosis, resource efficiency and circular economy practices.
A key differentiator is Coega’s Capital Office, which structures investment-ready, bankable projects, de-risking large-scale infrastructure and attracting blended and concessional finance. While challenges include green skills shortages, feasibility gaps, grid constraints and geopolitical trade pressures, Coega addresses these through strong skills programmes, infrastructure planning and AfCFTA-aligned strategies.
Ms Mhlanga sees Africa as well placed to leapfrog fossil-fuel development by building green from the outset, provided projects are well structured and locally grounded. She emphasises inclusive growth through SMME procurement, job creation and women’s participation, highlighting Africa’s Green Economy Summit as a catalyst for partnerships, investment and continental green growth.
Please can we start with some background on you, your role at Coega and your organisation’s sustainability and green economy goals.
My name is Nomathemba Mhlanga. I am the Coega Development Corporation’s Chief Sustainability Officer.
I have over 20 years’ experience as a Sustainability Specialist, spanning engineering consulting firms, multilaterals and blue chip companies.
As a multi-award-winning Special Economic Zone or SEZ, Coega has made sustainability central to its mandate and values. It is a core organisational value that drives our social, economic, and environmental growth. Coega has deepened its environmental commitments through a structured response to international conventions and protocols. Coega is clear on its role in advancing the nationally determined contributions on emissions reduction targets and adaptation strategies.
Coega has a comprehensive Climate Response Plan that sets a strategic vision for an effective climate change response, just transition to a climate-resilient and lower-carbon economy and society. The strategy intends to proactively address the impacts of climate change on the Coega’s operations by embedding resilience, carbon emissions reduction, and fostering sustainable practices across our operations.
Coega is rooted in the Eco-Industrial Park (EIP) concept, which promotes collaboration among businesses located within a common industrial area. We enhance industrial symbiosis within the SEZ by identifying, enabling, and implementing opportunities for shared resource use, waste minimisation, energy and water efficiency, and circular economy practices among tenants and zone infrastructure.
Tell us more about your Capital Raising Office for potential investors to understand you better.
Through our Capital Office which is a dedicated investment structuring hub, we provide specialised investment planning, structuring, and capital-raising, ensuring that large-scale projects entering the SEZ are investment-ready. Our Capital Office acts as a single, centralised interface for investors, financiers, DFIs, multilateral institutions, and private equity, removing fragmentation and improving transaction certainty. We are therefore able to translate national and provincial industrial policy priorities into bankable investment projects aligned with the SEZ’s development pipeline and to ensure that infrastructure development, regulatory processes, and funding models are sequenced and aligned, reducing investor friction and time-to-market.
By designing robust financial models, economic impact assessments, and project structuring frameworks, the Capital Office enables projects to attract blended finance, concessional funding, and catalytic capital. This expands the SEZ’s capacity to host mega-projects in data infrastructure, energy, logistics, manufacturing, and industrial services.
The Capital Office strengthens bankability through:
o detailed development-impact modelling,
o early-stage concept and pre-feasibility packaging,
o structuring of appropriate risk allocations, and
o crafting commercially viable PPP frameworks.
This de-risks both investor exposure and infrastructure delivery for the SEZ.
The Capital Office also leads the establishment of strategic partnerships with DFIs, sovereign funds, commercial banks, specialist infrastructure funds, and global technology partners. These partnerships deepen the SEZ’s connectivity to regional and global capital markets and signal confidence in the SEZ’s long-term growth trajectory.
With strong internal governance and financial advisory functions, the Capital Office accelerates:
o investment approval cycles,
o due diligence preparation,
o transaction structuring, and
o financial close processes.
This is a major differentiator for investors seeking predictable execution in an African context.
The Capital Office does not disengage after project entry. It supports:
o expansion planning,
o refinancing or recapitalisation needs,
o accessing incentives, and
o preparing for scale-up or export orientation.
This long-term relationship approach enhances investor retention and deepens economic impact. By building bankable models and investment cases, the Capital Office positions the Coega SEZ as a continental implementation platform—particularly for AfCFTA-linked industrialisation projects.
It creates a differentiated value proposition: Coega is not just providing physical infrastructure; it is providing project enablement, financial engineering, and cross-border investment structuring.
Our Capital Office gives Coega a unique advantage through:
What are the main challenges in this sector in your view? And the opportunities?
Skills gaps: A significant green skills gap exists. We acknowledge that transitioning to a circular economy or a hydrogen-based grid requires specialised skills. Coega started addressing this gap 13 years ago through our catalytic Maths and Science Programme which enables learners to improve their matric results in Mathematics and Physical Science to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. We achieved a 100% pass rate in Physical Sciences and 99% in Mathematics for the 2025 cohort, and 100% across both subjects in prior years – impacting the lives of over 1,000 young people since inception and building the next pipeline of change makers, scientists, and engineers. In addition, our dedicated skills development centre offers artisanal programmes and apprenticeships to address scarce skills across key economic sectors, which not only works as a support mechanism for investors operating in the SEZ, but also serves as a critical service to public sector departments implementing socio-economic programmes.
Geopolitics: President Donald Trump’s second administration has launched what economists are calling one of the most comprehensive trade wars in modern American history. This means the Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement must be expedited. There are several measures that should be implemented to facilitate trade and development in the region, including: customs harmonisation, tariff reduction/elimination, establishing an operational continental payment system, completing rules of original frameworks, integrating AfCFTA into national frameworks and legislation, and a digital transformation of trade facility platforms.
Feasibility gaps: While there is global capital, there may be a shortage of investment-ready projects. Many green initiatives fail at the feasibility stage because they lack the financial structuring required by private investors.
Grid and Infrastructure challenges: Existing electrical grids cannot effectively accommodate the intermittent nature of wind and solar. Modernising these legacy systems is costly and is heavily reliant of the related enabling policy/regulations.
Despite these challenges, opportunities do exist:
Decentralised Energy: Microgrids are a viable option. This allows remote areas to skip the “national grid” phase entirely.
Water Conservation: Considering the Metro’s water scarcity crisis, the Coega SEZ is planning to stabilise industrial water consumption through water reuse infrastructure from our Waste Water Treatment Plant.
How is Africa positioned to take advantage of the burgeoning opportunities of the green economy, such as climate finance, carbon credits etc.?
On paper, Africa presents a compelling case for investment. With its rapidly expanding population, abundant natural resources, and rising digital connectivity, the continent is increasingly recognised as a high-potential growth market for sectors such as consumer goods, financial services, and high-tech. Because much of the continent is still developing its core infrastructure, it can bypass fossil-fuel-dependent industrialisation all together and build green from the ground up. However, Africa’s promise comes with a caveat.
Each African market has unique dynamics—varying by language, currency, regulatory environment, and consumer behaviour—making a one-size-fits-all approach ineffective. Companies must navigate an ecosystem dominated by small and informal businesses, early-stage talent, and less standardised regulatory systems. Navigating this evolving landscape requires more than interest—it demands insight, local understanding, and diplomatic agility.
Accelerating Technology Transfer Through Strategic Partnerships
We also position Coega as a partner of choice for international firms seeking African market access, using structured deals to secure:
o skills transfer and workforce development,
o localisation of advanced manufacturing processes, and
o know-how in operations, maintenance, and digital industrial systems.
We support the transition of local innovations from research to market by:
o designing commercialisation and scale-up pathways,
o structuring pilot-to-commercial funding models, and
o bridging local IP creators with private investors and DFIs.
o infrastructure design (renewable integration, water efficiency),
o labour and community engagement strategies,
o local procurement planning,
o gender mainstreaming, and
o environmental stewardship.
By measuring and reporting ESG outcomes, we strengthen investor confidence and aligns with global sustainability benchmarks.
We also quantify—and optimises—developmental impact through rigorous modelling covering:
o Job creation (direct, indirect, induced),
o GDP contribution,
o Export potential,
o SMME participation,
o Localisation and supply-chain capacity building,
o Skills and human capital development.
We work across the project life cycle—from concept to financial close—to ensure developmental priorities remain embedded, not diluted.
o Manufacturing scale-up,
o Logistics and trade facilitation,
o Technology diffusion,
o SEZ-to-SEZ industrial corridors.
How can we make sure that those communities that need it the most are given the opportunity to share in this future prosperity?
Ensuring equitable prosperity starts with reintroducing the concept of sustainability as a foundational skill. By integrating circular economy principles into the school curriculum, we can move beyond theory and awareness. Instead of teaching students how to recycle what they buy, lessons should focus on repairing and upcycling. This not only enables skills development but also fosters an entrepreneurial mindset.
Another important shift we can make is recognising that zero waste is not a new trend. For many, it is a survival mechanism that has been practiced for generations. While affluent suburbs are just now learning to “reduce, reuse, and recycle,” many underserved communities have been practising these principles out of necessity. We must create platforms where community members lead the sustainability conversation.
Reintroducing the concept of sustainability as a foundational skill should also involve Coega’s social facilitation with traditional leaders to ensure the powerful role of less skilled communities is transformed into active participation. When communities are engaged through recognised leadership, there are co-design initiatives, contributions of local knowledge, and ownership of outcomes. This transforms sustainability from a compliance exercise into a shared development journey.
Coega is also committed to creating meaningful economic opportunities through the green economy. In the last financial year alone, Coega achieved 48.77% SMME procurement spend on projects, against a target of 33%. A total of R1.946 billion in contracts were awarded by Coega, and R945.5 million benefited black owned SMMEs.
In terms of skills development, training outputs, and job creation, Coega trained 5,011 people and created 15,611 jobs in the SEZ – 11,012 cumulative operational jobs and 4,599 construction jobs.
How important is an event such as AGES for the continent?
With global attention shifting to green industrialisation and climate-aligned investment, AGES offers a strategic platform for Africa to demonstrate its role in shaping the green growth agenda. However, the real significance of the AGES platform is seen in the outcomes achieved, partnerships formed, ideas catalysed, and investments pledged or secured.
Why did Coega decide to partner with AGES?
The AGES contributes to Coega’s mission and vision by providing a platform for discussions on economically enabling initiatives and critical infrastructure projects.
The structured investment matching environment has been thoughtfully designed to facilitate real deals and long-term collaborative opportunities.
Coega’s partnership with AGES presents an opportunity to showcase our Green Economy Portfolio. This exposure will allow us to connect directly with investors, DFIs, policymakers and potential partners to further our impact in terms of investment attraction, job creation, and overall sustainable socio-economic development.
As Coega is an official sponsor at the upcoming AGES 2026, you are part of the Women In Green Economy session. Can you give us a preview of your expectations of this session and what your message will be?
Well, essentially, we recognise that women are not peripheral to Africa’s green and blue economy. They are:
However, their impact is often fragmented, informal, and under-capitalised. Special Economic Zones (SEZ) – like Coega – represent a powerful, but underutilised lever to change this:
Our story is about connecting women’s climate leadership to SEZ-scale execution. I hope to elaborate on this with the highly skilled and dynamic ladies joining me on the panel.
Anything to add?
As Africa transitions toward a low-carbon future, the Coega SEZ offers an enabling industrial ecosystem for businesses to thrive:
Book a meeting with one of our sustainability experts and partner for progress at this year’s Africa Green Economy Summit: https://forms.office.com/r/fB1f8RqKQJ
Africa's Green Economy Summit connects industry professionals and organisations to information and each other in a carefully curated live environment. Its purpose is to support in mobilising investments for green projects to scale up and industrialisation, which will have a significant impact on environmental sustainability and economic growth.
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