Independent research for Africa’s climate economy

Evidence for Africa’s transition, and the people living it.

StoneComms is an independent research and intelligence firm examining the systems shaping Africa’s climate economy—from electrification and industrialisation to the people and institutions making the transition real.

We combine public evidence, original enquiry and lived experience to produce clear, decision-useful intelligence for investors, institutions and leaders—and work the public can interrogate.

Our field of view

Africa
Energy
Industry
Voice

Capital · infrastructure · adoption · voice

Research agenda · 2026

Three questions guide our work.

Where is change happening? Who benefits? Who has been heard in deciding what happens next?

01

Electric mobility

Tracking the commercial models, infrastructure and public policy shaping Africa’s transition to electric transport.

02

Industrial transition

Following the capital, manufacturing choices and local value chains behind the continent’s climate economy.

03

Voice and legitimacy

Examining whose experience reaches decision-makers—and what gets missed when it does not.

The value of research

Better evidence changes what organisations see—and what they do next.

It reduces uncertainty before capital is committed, exposes risk before it becomes costly and tests whether strategy matches conditions on the ground.

First intelligence programme · In development

Open before it locks

A research programme examining which battery-swapping models can support mass electric-motorcycle adoption in Kenya—and what riders, operators, policymakers and investors need from the system.

Electric mobilityKenyaMarket systems
Read the research

The StoneComms evidence standard

Useful intelligence should show its workings.

Principle 01

Source first

Claims begin with primary documents, public data and attributable evidence.

Principle 02

Limits visible

Uncertainty, incomplete data and competing interpretations remain part of the published record.

Principle 03

People count

Investment and policy are tested against the experience of those expected to live with them.

Principle 04

Human accountable

AI supports discovery and analysis. Lee Breheny remains editor and accountable author.

Commission StoneComms

When the public record is not enough, we find what is missing.

Commissioned market intelligence, stakeholder research, evidence-led thought leadership and executive briefings for organisations financing, building and governing Africa’s climate economy.

  • Market and policy research
  • Stakeholder and lived-experience studies
  • Research-led narrative and thought leadership
  • Executive and investment briefings
Discuss a project

Editor and Research Director

Lee Breheny

From newsroom to boardroom, with the evidence kept in view.

Lee is a former BBC editorial leader and communications executive. He helped build the public narrative of African electric-mobility company Spiro and later served as Chief Communications Officer for multi-billion-dollar African industrialisation and investment platform Equitane. His research at Oxford Brookes examines voice, marginalisation and editorial inclusion in UK journalism.