Ashesi University’s Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC) recently held two National Green Business Roadshows in the Western and Ashanti Regions. The roadshows were held under the theme of ‘GreenNovate’, with the notion of inspiring and motivating small and growing businesses to either start climate-smart innovative businesses or to deepen their operations and business strategies to scale their green business.
The two National Green Business roadshows also provided an opportunity for the GCIC team to inform and engage climate-smart small and growing businesses on the Centre’s work, its bouquet of services, as well as the advisory, technical and financial services it offers to businesses in its cohorts.
A total of 123 businesses participated in the national green business roadshows in both regions, with 44 of the participants being female-owned enterprises. A major highlight of each region’s roadshow was the Investor Readiness Masterclass. Facilitated by Ruka Sanusi, the Executive Director of GCIC, the highly interactive Investor Readiness Masterclass sessions outlined the pertinent business management principles and fundamentals required for a business to become investor ready.
As part of the Masterclass session, Ms Sanusi also took participants through the level of readiness required to potentially participate in the GCIC business incubator.
“As a start-up founder, there are specific interventions and operational strategies that you need to deploy to prepare your business for investment.”, she revealed.
Speaking on the relevance of GCIC’s support to climate-smart businesses, Dramani Bukari, Director of Partnership, Entrepreneurship, and Investments at GCIC said.
“GCIC supports small and growing climate-smart enterprises across Ghana which have transformative innovation solutions that (i) aid in the mitigation and adaptation of climate change, and (ii) work in the following five key economic sectors, i.e, energy efficiency, solar power, climate-smart agriculture, domestic waste management, and water management & purification. In addition, our incubator supports larger SMEs who are rethinking their processes and operations in a bid to be more sustainable”, he added.
Further to this, as part of partnership building across Ghana, the GCIC leadership team also engaged with a number of public and private sector leaders and institutions in the regions, including Chief Directors of the Regional Coordinating Councils in the Western and Ashanti Regions; senior academics at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, and Takoradi Technical University; as well as the leadership of business hubs and incubators in the two regions.
GCIC’s national green business roadshows are targeted at businesses that have been in operation for at least 3 years, generate a minimum revenue of GHS100,000 annually, and have developed entrepreneurial innovations for climate change mitigation or adaptation; or SMEs seeking to transition to a lower carbon pathway by adopting sustainable or ‘green’ models in their business strategies, manufacturing processes, and operations.
GCIC is a pioneering national business incubator with a unique focus on developing SME ventures and entrepreneurs in Ghana’s ‘Green Economy’. Our mission is to develop and support an exceptional set of transformational ventures and entrepreneurs who are pioneering adaptive and mitigating solutions for climate change issues in Ghana. We do this with a focus on five key economic sectors (energy efficiency & renewable energy; solar power; climate-smart agriculture; domestic waste management; water management and purification), the provision of premium business advisory and business mentoring services, technical support in the development, prototyping and testing of their innovation, as well as financial Proof of Concept grants to qualifying SMEs within our incubator.
GCIC is an institute of Ashesi University and is currently funded by a grant from Global Affairs Canada. The Centre, with partners EY Ghana, offers a unique combination of of experience and excellence in private sector development, climate change, entrepreneurship, education and training, and research and development know-how.
