BPP Partnership Impact Series: Strengthening climate adaptation through women-led enterprise
Since its launch, the Business Partnerships Platform (BPP) has worked with ambitious partners to deliver meaningful, lasting change in communities across the world. The BPP Partnership Impact Series celebrates the outcomes and lessons from our partnerships, highlighting their contributions to inclusive economic growth, resilience and sustainable development.
Our Climate Adaptation partnerships in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta focused on practical, market-based approaches that help communities adapt to climate change while strengthening livelihoods and ecosystems. This partnership, which concluded in November 2025, demonstrated how women-led small and medium agribusinesses in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta can strengthen local enterprise by transforming natural materials and green waste into scalable, sustainable value chains.
Meet the founders creating long-term value for their communities and climate
Vietnam’s Mekong Delta has long been a centre of agricultural production and trade, shaping local economies and supplying global markets. As climate pressures and market shifts redefine the region’s future, women entrepreneurs are emerging as key drivers of change. Working at the intersection of agriculture, craftsmanship and sustainability, they are building businesses that respond to environmental constraints while creating new income opportunities for their communities. By blending traditional knowledge with innovation, they are demonstrating how locally grounded enterprises can strengthen resilience, preserve cultural practices and unlock more inclusive growth.
Deltaccelerate, a women’s agribusiness accelerator led by New Energy Nexus and supported through the Business Partnerships Platform, identifies and backs women-led startups with strong social, economic and environmental value potential in the Mekong Delta. Deltaccelerate supported fifteen agribusinesses committed to climate adaptation and women’s empowerment, whether through leadership, employment or products and services benefiting women. The program’s first stage provided tailored training and mentoring through a mix of immersive bootcamps, site visits and networking, helping founders strengthen their businesses, scale sustainably and deepen their impact in local communities.
In the program’s second stage, six outstanding enterprises received grants, ranging from AUD15,000 to AUD65,000 which totalled up to AUD250,000. Each also received further mentoring to scale their initiatives and deepen their impact. These enterprises included:
- AirX Carbon transforms biomaterials and agricultural waste into carbon negative pallets that optimise global green supply chain logistics.
- Ba Khia Dam Doi protects mangrove ecosystems while supporting sustainable seafood livelihoods in Ca Mau.
- Cocovie produces climate-resilient coconut oils from Ben Tre for international cosmetic markets.
- Ecoka creates eco-friendly handicrafts from climate-resilient natural fibres in Hau Giang for export to homes around the world.
- Palmania produces organic palmyra palm products using sustainable methods grounded in indigenous Khmer knowledge in An Giang province.
- Vicosap revives ancient Khmer farming practices to create climate-adaptive Macapuno coconut products in Tra Vinh.
Highlights
Across all participating enterprises, the BPP partnership delivered:
- Climate and land management outcomes: 330+ hectares brought under sustainable agriculture and aquaculture practices, including regenerative farming, mangrove aquaculture and climate-resilient crops.
- Sustainable production: 1,390+ tonnes of agricultural waste upcycled through sustainable material substitution.
- Inclusive supply chains: Expanded sourcing through partnerships with local farming households, creating new revenue streams and strengthening climate-adaptive enterprise capacity.
- Skills and capacity building: Around 230 people trained across investment readiness, climate adaptation, production, marketing, financial management and e-commerce.
- Business growth: Average revenue across five of six enterprises grew by 123%. Inclusive sourcing also supported close to 1,700 local suppliers.
- Income growth: 2,300+ farmers and employees across the enterprises recorded income gains over the partnership period, with average incomes rising from AUD389 to AUD632.
- Women’s leadership: Supported 49 women in leadership and management, with an increase of three new managerial roles created.
- Inclusive employment: 64 jobs created, representing a 17% growth in overall employment across enterprises. Over 50% of these roles were filled by women, while overall employment for people with a disability increased by around 35%.
- Market access: Enterprises reached new export markets, including contracts in India and the Netherlands, with further expansion underway across Southeast Asia and South Korea.
- Recognition: Three enterprises received national or international awards for climate innovation, women’s leadership and sustainable product development.
View the full partnership impact story below or download here.
In focus
Behind the results of Deltaccelerate are the entrepreneurs navigating climate risk, market pressure and deeply rooted social norms. The following stories, featuring Palmania, AirX Carbon and Ecoka, show how these founders are building businesses that adapt production, strengthen value chains and create new opportunities for their communities across the Mekong Delta.
Palmania: Preserving heritage while adapting production
In Vietnam’s Bảy Núi region, palm sugar production has long been a source of income and cultural identity for Khmer communities. However, industrial substitutes and volatile markets have pushed traditional practices to the margins.
Founded by three women, Palmania set out to reverse this trend by producing additive-free palm sugar that meets modern quality standards while preserving traditional Khmer heritage. This required fundamental changes to the harvesting and processing methods, greater upfront investment from local suppliers, and strong trust-based relationships with farmers.
These efforts were further challenged by gender norms that limited women’s authority in production and business negotiation with local farmers. Through Deltaccelerate, Palmania successfully refined its business strategy, strengthened its financial management and gained credibility through technical and quality assurance validation, including Glycaemic Index testing to verify the quality point-of-difference for their product.
As a result, Palmania expanded collaboration with Khmer farming households, strengthened trust with local authorities, increased visibility with media, investors and consumers. The enterprise is helping reinforce a community-based model of production that preserves traditional culture while supporting climate-resilient livelihoods.
AirX Carbon: Turning waste into circular value
Across Vietnam, agricultural waste is abundant, while manufacturing-focused startups often struggle to access climate finance remains . AirX Carbon addressed both these challenges by developing NetZero Pallets made from upcycled agricultural by-products and discarded industrial pallets.
Despite their innovative approach, traditional venture capital markets initially showed limited interest in green manufacturing, favouring short-term, high-growth technology enterprises instead. AirX Carbon’s breakthrough came through leveraging adaptive funding strategies and looking internationally for capital to scale.
Participation in Deltaccelerate further strengthened AirX Carbon’s financial modelling, investor readiness and market positioning. With enhanced credibility and expanded global networks, AirX Carbon secured USD480,000 in funding, reached break-even by 2024 and was projected to achieve USD1.2 million in revenue for 2025.
Today, AirX Carbon operates as a hybrid circular model spanning direct sales, pallet leasing and technology licensing. Its growth has created stable incomes for rural suppliers of agricultural waste and has generated new green jobs, proving how climate innovation and community empowerment can scale together.
Ecoka: Adapting supply chains for a changing climate
For Ecoka, climate adaptation is inseparable from social resilience. Working with traditional craft villages, the enterprise produces biodegradable home and lifestyle products from natural fibres, creating livelihoods for women and vulnerable workers while offering an alternative to cheap plastic production.
When saline intrusion and drought reduced the availability of water hyacinth, a core production material, Ecoka treated climate disruption as a catalyst for innovation. The team researched salt-tolerant materials, such as bulrush and banana bark, and trained women artisans to work with these new fibers. To aid this transition to bulrush, Ecoka formed 25 partnerships with local shrimp farming householders in Ca Mau Province to cultivate and harvest bulrush across 96 hectares, yielding around 32 tons annually.
Before joining Deltaccelerate, Ecoka relied heavily on the United States export market, leaving the business vulnerable and exposed to global shocks. The Deltaccelerate program provided strategic guidance, expanded network connections and increased visibility to support the enterprise with diversifying their market and aligning their growth with climate-adaptive sourcing. As a result, Ecoka expanded into 10 international markets, strengthened climate-resilient supply chains, and reinforced its role as a leading social impact business in the Mekong Delta.
