The Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST), the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations (MELR) have been urged to collaborate with academic institutions to include critical green skills in the education curriculum.
This is to ensure that adequate technical capacity is built to facilitate the growth of green businesses in Ghana. It will also ensure that the relevance of green businesses is appreciated by students to enable them to contribute to national efforts in this regard.
Green business refers to a company that integrates environmental considerations into all aspects of its operations, from sourcing materials to managing waste and promoting sustainable practices.
The call was made by the Senior Research Associate at IMANI Centre for Policy and Education (CPE), Mr Dennis Asare in Accra on May 6.
Mr Asare was addressing stakeholders at a consultative dialogue to disseminate findings of a study conducted by his outfit in respect of how policy, market and non-market factors in Ghana support or impede green business investments.
The research was conducted against the backdrop that low private sector investment in terms of the overall climate finance flows shows the unattractiveness of the business environment for green investment despite the enormous green growth potentials in Ghana.
Mr Asare said the study, conducted between 2024 and early part of this year, identified gaps that can potentially hinder the scalability of green businesses in Ghana.
According to him, the research results showed that “green businesses in Ghana, most of which are small and medium enterprises, face scalability challenges because the policy and market environment are not supportive of attracting the needed investments.”
Mr Asare added that “Although some reforms have been implemented, including legislating climate change issues to strengthen climate change governance, there are outstanding policy and market-related issues that continue to hinder the scalability of green businesses and negatively affect their ability to attract the needed investments. Notable ones include a weak fiscal incentive system, uncoordinated and incoherent policies, and technical capacity constraints.”
It is to address the technical capacity constraint that IMANI CPE recommended that “MEST, MoE and MELR must collaborate with academic institutions to include critical green skills in the education curriculum.”
The governance think tank also recommended that “MEST must prioritize the finalization of the national low-carbon development strategy and develop a specific climate change law linked to a long term decarbonization strategy.”
It added that “The climate finance division must develop an operational framework that streamlines all the incentives available for green investments.”
With regard to owners of green businesses, Mr Asare said they must “leverage existing financing opportunities to enhance their capacity in project bankability as well as invest in product certifications to enhance the credibility of their products.”
He also urged Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to “leverage the provisions in the new Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) Act to demand more participation and accountability.”
Mr Asare acknowledged the recent appointment of a Minister of State for Climate Change and Sustainability to prioritize climate issues in Ghana’s development planning.
“While these are relevant for climate governance, it is imperative to understand how they contribute to creating a supportive business environment to attract green investment,” he noted.
In response, the Technical Director at the Office of the Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Mr Cedric Dzelu said the findings made by IMANI CPE will help to evolve meaningful strategies to ensure green businesses thrive in the country.
“We do know that before you can take any strategic decisions to influence governance, one must base their decisions on sound research and irrefutable data. What IMANI has done is to give us that data to point out the gap in the green financing sector.
And for us at the office of the Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, we are excited to receive this information. We will further study this document and interrogate it with our technical expertise and see how we can collaborate with IMANI Ghana to scale up some of these issues and find ways to address these gaps,” he assured.
Mr Dzelu further pledged that “We will collaborate with IMANI Ghana to offer high level capacity building to banks and Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs).”
Other stakeholders called for enhanced public awareness activities on the social and financial benefits of green businesses.
“Green business should be a lifestyle. It should be viewed differently from climate change. We should be able to separate waste in our kitchen and use bio-degradable waste as fertilizer for the backyard garden. We should be able to sell the empty sachet water and make money,” a green business advocate suggested.
The session was attended by representatives from academia and the green business community, Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), and GIZ.
