Equip women entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses

Submitted through the COP31 Sustainable Transformation Awards · SKD Türkiye (WBCSD Global Network Partner)

The company is a diversified industrial holding that operates in eight sectors through more than 50 companies and employs approximately 6,000 people. It was founded 72 years ago by two young entrepreneurs.

Women's participation in the Turkish economy is constrained less by an absence of business ideas than by uneven access to structured training, finance, business networks, visibility and growth opportunities. Grant-only schemes close the finance gap but leave the other constraints in place, so funded ventures often stall at the point where branding, market access and supplier relationships become decisive.

The company's response was to treat support for women entrepreneurs as a long-term development model rather than as a donation. Under its Responsible Communication Policy, budget that would otherwise be spent on large marketing campaigns is redirected to the entrepreneurs themselves, and the entrepreneurs, not the sponsor, are the visible subject of the communication that follows.

The initiative was launched in 2023 in partnership with a national non-governmental organisation specialising in training and field operations, and reaches women in all 81 provinces of Türkiye.

Results are measured against a 2023 base year and reported annually in the company's sustainability reporting, which is subject to independent third-party external assurance (1).

Location of the initiative: All 81 provinces of Türkiye

The programme brings training, mentoring, grant finance, branding and network access together in a single pathway, so that a venture moves from capability building to market access without leaving the structure.

Training is delivered in a hybrid format and covers customer experience design, sustainability, artificial intelligence, e-export and branding. Sustainability is taught as a separate compulsory module rather than as a background theme, which means every participant works through resource efficiency and impact-oriented business model design whatever their sector.

Grant finance follows the training stage. Ventures that have already produced results are assessed by a jury of independent experts drawn from entrepreneurship and business, and environmental, social and governance performance is applied as an assessment criterion alongside economic, environmental and social impact, sustainable growth, scalability and the capacity to attract international investment. Grants have been awarded in industrial design, agricultural technology, biotechnology, functional nutrition, sustainable tourism and industry.

Group companies co-fund the grant stage alongside the holding company. This enlarges the pool without requiring a single central budget line and gives each business a direct stake in the ventures closest to its own market.

Visibility is treated as a form of support in its own right. Supported ventures appear on a business television programme sponsored by the company, in the corporate magazine and in an interview series published on the company's video channel, and every grant recipient receives promotional support and individual media exposure.

Market access completes the pathway. Where the fit is appropriate, supported ventures are brought into the supplier ecosystem of the group's companies, which converts a one-off grant into a continuing commercial relationship and a route to revenue rather than a single cash injection.

Regional meetings held under the title From Dream to Success bring entrepreneurs from different parts of the country together to share experience. They spread the entrepreneurship ecosystem beyond the largest cities and allow participants to form collaborations directly with one another.

Figure 1: The six pillars of the programme pathway, from education and capacity building to supplier network integration

Figure 2: Social return on investment of 2.77 in 2024 and 3.53 in 2025, with entrepreneurial competency up by 78 to 88 per cent.

Sustainability Impact

Climate

The initiative is a social investment rather than an emissions reduction project, and it does not target the company's own Scope 1 or Scope 2 emissions. Its climate contribution is indirect and works through the ventures it supports.

Sustainability is a compulsory training module, so every participant is taken through resource efficiency and impact-oriented business model design before the grant stage. Environmental, social and governance performance is then applied as a jury criterion, which directs grant capital towards business models that reduce resource use rather than increase it.

The agricultural technology ventures supported in the 2025 cycle illustrate the mechanism: five of them were funded by the group's agriculture business, which ties the grant decision to an operation that is itself working on climate-resilient production.

No quantified emissions effect is claimed, because any reductions occur inside independent businesses outside the company's reporting boundary.

Nature

The environmental content of the programme is delivered through the selection and training filters rather than through a physical intervention.

Resource efficiency and impact-oriented business models are the criteria used to distinguish ventures at the grant stage, and the ventures funded include businesses in agricultural technology, biotechnology, functional nutrition and sustainable tourism, all fields in which material, water and land use decisions are made early in the life of a company.

Because the support reaches ventures at an early stage, those design choices are made before production patterns are locked in, which is the point at which the cost of changing them is lowest.

Social

Since the programme began in 2023, 4,000 women entrepreneurs from all 81 provinces of Türkiye have been trained, and 40 women-led ventures have qualified for grant support. In the 2025 cycle, 20 ventures were supported by the holding company and five agricultural technology ventures by the group's agriculture business.

Capability gain is measured rather than assumed. Competency increase in the training programmes was measured at between 78 and 88 per cent using pre-test and post-test instruments, and participant satisfaction was recorded at 100 per cent.

Every venture receiving a grant is given promotional support, individual media exposure and the opportunity to join the group's supplier network, which addresses visibility and market access rather than finance alone.

Social value is quantified using the social return on investment methodology, with 2023 as the base year. The 2024 analysis produced a ratio of 2.77 and the 2025 analysis a ratio of 3.53, meaning that each 1 unit invested generated 2.77 units of social value in 2024 and 3.53 units in 2025. The increase of approximately 27 per cent is attributed to growth in the number of women reached by the training, stronger mentoring and grant mechanisms, improvement in the business development capacity of the entrepreneurs and wider visibility activity.

Media outcomes over the most recent year comprised 26 print press items, 224 online media items and three television items, reaching 3,571,673 people in total. Social media activity produced 1,715,752 reach, 3,191,972 impressions and 8,330 engagements.

A business television programme focused on women, sponsored by the company and broadcast for three seasons, has hosted 43 women entrepreneurs, nine of whom were grant winners from this programme.

The regional From Dream to Success meetings connect experienced and new entrepreneurs and build a peer learning and solidarity network that extends the ecosystem beyond the largest cities.

Business Impact

Benefits

The programme gives the group a structured route to new suppliers. Ventures that reach the grant stage are assessed on impact, sustainable growth, scalability and international investment potential before they enter the supplier ecosystem, so the screening that serves the social objective also functions as supplier due diligence.

Redirecting communication budget from paid campaigns to the entrepreneurs themselves produced measurable reach at low media cost: 3,571,673 people were reached through earned media over the most recent year, alongside 1,715,752 reach and 3,191,972 impressions on social media, without a large advertising spend.

Co-funding by group companies spreads the cost across several balance sheets and gives each business direct access to ventures in adjacent markets, which is why the agriculture business funded agricultural technology ventures in its own field.

The social return on investment ratio rose from 2.77 to 3.53 between 2024 and 2025, which gives the board a comparable efficiency measure for a social investment that would otherwise be reported only as expenditure.

Costs

The main cost items are grant capital for the 40 ventures funded to date, delivery of the hybrid training and mentoring through the implementing non-governmental organisation, the regional meetings, the jury and evaluation processes, communication and media production, and the internal management time of the corporate communication, sustainability, procurement and human resources functions.

The cost base is designed to rise rather than fall. Scope and financial resource are increased every year, and contributions from group companies are actively encouraged in order to widen corporate ownership of the programme.

Impact measurement is itself a recurring cost, because the social return on investment analysis, the participant registration systems, the pre-test and post-test instruments, the evaluation forms and the satisfaction surveys all have to be run and analysed annually.

Costs are contained in three ways: by working with an implementing partner that already has field presence in all 81 provinces rather than building a delivery organisation; by using owned communication channels, the corporate magazine and the sponsored television programme instead of buying media; and by distributing the grant burden across group companies rather than a single central budget.

The dependency to manage is continuity. Because the model relies on annual corporate funding rather than on venture revenue, the pathway only holds if the commitment is renewed each cycle.

Impact Beyond Sustainability And Business

Co-benefits

Reaching all 81 provinces moves entrepreneurship support out of the largest cities, where such schemes usually concentrate, and the regional meetings create direct connections between entrepreneurs in different parts of the country.

Media representation has a value beyond the individual venture. 43 women entrepreneurs appearing over three seasons of a business television programme changes who is visible as a business owner in the national conversation, a benefit that also accrues to women who never enter the programme.

The supplier network route creates commercial relationships that continue after the grant is spent, so ventures are integrated into a value chain rather than left to find one.

The jury and training design also transfers governance practice: participants work through environmental, social and governance criteria that most early-stage ventures would otherwise encounter only when approaching institutional investors.

Potential side-effects

Selection pressure is the main trade-off. Criteria such as scalability, sustainable growth and international investment potential favour ventures that are already relatively mature, which can pull support away from the earliest-stage businesses facing the sharpest barriers. The wide training base of 4,000 participants partly offsets this, because the grant stage is only one part of the offer.

Visibility is concentrated on the 40 grant recipients, so the gap in exposure between winners and other participants is large. The regional meetings and the shared learning network are the mechanism used to spread benefit beyond the winners.

The social return on investment figure depends on the proxies and assumptions used to value outcomes. The movement from 2.77 to 3.53 is best read as a year-on-year comparison within one consistent methodology rather than as a ratio comparable with other organisations' figures.

There is also a dependency risk for the ventures themselves: promotional support, media exposure and supplier access delivered by one corporate group can become the main channel to market, which is why the programme also builds branding and business development capability that the venture keeps.

Typical Business Profile

The model suits diversified corporate groups that already have a supplier ecosystem, owned communication channels and a corporate foundation or social investment structure, because the distinctive elements of this design are market access and visibility rather than grant capital alone.

It is most relevant where several group companies operate in different sectors, since each can fund and absorb ventures in its own field, and where the group has national reach or an implementing partner that does.

Delivery engages corporate communication, sustainability, procurement, human resources and senior management, working with an external training and field operations partner and an independent expert jury.

Approach

1. Define the target group and the barrier being addressed: Establish which constraint the programme is designed to remove — access to knowledge, finance, networks, visibility or growth opportunities — and design each component against a named barrier instead of offering a general support package.

2. Select an implementing partner with existing field reach: Work with a non-governmental organisation that already has local presence and platform relationships, so that recruitment can cover the whole country from the first cycle rather than expanding city by city.

3. Build the curriculum around business capability and sustainability together: Deliver customer experience design, artificial intelligence, e-export and branding in a hybrid format, and teach sustainability as a separate compulsory module so that resource efficiency is designed into the business model rather than added later.

4. Measure capability, not attendance: Run pre-test and post-test instruments, evaluation forms and satisfaction surveys for every cohort, and report competency gain as a percentage so that weak modules can be identified and replaced.

5. Put an independent jury and environmental, social and governance criteria into the grant stage: Assess ventures on impact, sustainable growth, scalability and international investment potential using experts from outside the company, so that the funding decision is defensible and the filter itself raises the standard of the applicant pool.

6. Co-fund from the operating companies, not only from the centre: Ask each group business to fund ventures in its own sector, which enlarges the grant pool, spreads ownership and connects the venture to a business that understands its market.

7. Make visibility and supplier access standard components: Give every grant recipient promotional support, individual media exposure through owned and partner channels, and an assessed route into the group's supplier ecosystem, so that support continues after the money is spent.

8. Run an annual social return on investment analysis against a fixed base year: Value outcomes across access to training, competency gain, access to finance, business development capacity, visibility and economic empowerment, publish the ratio, and use the year-on-year movement to decide which mechanisms to strengthen in the next cycle.

Stakeholders Involved

• Project leads: The board of directors and senior management of the holding company own the programme, which sits among the group's long-term strategic social investment projects. The group's education and culture foundation and the group companies participate directly, and coordination is run jointly by the holding company and the implementing non-governmental organisation. Training, mentoring, communication, evaluation and financial support processes are managed through an open, transparent and multi-stakeholder governance approach.

• Company functions: Corporate communication manages the visibility components, including the corporate magazine, the video interview series and the sponsored television programme. Sustainability owns the impact measurement cycle and the environmental, social and governance criteria applied at the jury stage. Procurement assesses supported ventures for entry into the supplier ecosystem. Human resources and the operating companies contribute mentoring and sector expertise, and grant funding decisions are taken with the operating businesses rather than only at the centre.

• Main providers: A national non-governmental organisation acts as the principal implementation partner for training and field operations, and its collaborations with local initiatives and platforms are what make participation from all 81 provinces possible. An independent jury of experienced entrepreneurs and business practitioners assesses the grant applications, which strengthens the objectivity of the evaluation. Media partners, including a national business television channel alongside the company's own publication and video channels, deliver the visibility component.

• Other: Public institutions, academic institutions, suppliers, non-governmental organisations and local communities take part in the wider ecosystem. Participants themselves shape the programme: training content and support mechanisms are updated continuously on the basis of feedback collected systematically through training evaluations, mentoring processes and one-to-one interviews. Entrepreneurs who have already been through the programme mentor newer participants through the regional meetings and networking events, and collaborations across television, social media, corporate publications and press relations are developed with ecosystem partners on a regular basis.

Key Parameters To Consider

The programme runs on an annual cycle and has completed three cycles since 2023, which is also the base year for impact measurement. Results are produced from participant registration systems, pre-test and post-test instruments, training evaluation forms and satisfaction surveys, analysed annually and shared with stakeholders to identify development areas.

Social value is expressed through the social return on investment methodology across six measurement headings: access to training, development of entrepreneurial competency, access to finance, business development capacity, visibility and economic empowerment.

Scope and funding are increased each year by design, and the next stage is to extend the model into the other sectors in which the group operates so that new entrepreneurship verticals are opened.

Scalability is also an assessment criterion applied to the ventures themselves at the grant stage, alongside economic, environmental and social impact and the potential to attract international investment.

Implementation And Operations Tips

Grant capital alone does not remove the binding constraint. The elements participants value most in this design are the ones that are hardest to buy: media exposure, brand building support and a route into an established supplier network.

Measuring competency gain with pre-test and post-test instruments is what turns training from an output into an outcome. A satisfaction score on its own would not have shown the 78 to 88 per cent competency increase that justifies the training design.

Using a single consistent impact methodology from the first cycle matters more than choosing the most sophisticated one. Because the social return on investment analysis was run against a fixed 2023 base year, the movement from 2.77 to 3.53 is interpretable.

Putting environmental, social and governance criteria in front of an independent jury raises the quality of applications in the following cycle, because applicants prepare for the criteria they know will be applied.

Asking operating companies to fund ventures in their own sector converts a corporate social investment into a business relationship, and it is the mechanism that has kept the funding growing year on year.

Source List

(1) Alarko Holding 2024 sustainability report