Each member of the group had a climate-smart business idea and was given support to prove and sharpen it over the period to be able to pilot and up-scale to reduce carbon emission in the country and create opportunities for sustainable growth.

The green businesses are focus mainly on sectors including waste management, renewable energy, biogas management, agro-processing, and artefacts value addition.Madam Ruka Sanusi, Executive Director of GCIC who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in an interview on Thursday said over the period, cohort had gained insight about the entrepreneurship journey in the green economy.

In addition to the GCIC, she said taken through business skills, funding facilitation, market growth and market access support services, product development, policy advocacy and regulatory support services.

Madam Sanusi said the technical sections had equipped them with the skills and stamina to start a business and maintain their business for over five years to reduce the long-term costs of climate change.

After exiting the incubation at GCIC, she said the apprentices would have the opportunity to tap into the Ghana Climate Ventures Fund, a facility for early-stage green businesses to scale up their business.

Madam Sanusi explained that the eleven-member cohort would be monitored by a designed dashboard to track benchmarks including increase in revenue, carbon dioxide emission reduction, new jobs created and the number of households that had benefited from their business.

According to GCIC Executive Director, the centre hopes to support many clean technology businesses, provide households with access to clean energy and water and help the county increase their resilience to climate change.

The GCIC is a pioneering business incubator that seeks to support entrepreneurs and ventures involved in developing profitable and locally-appropriate solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation in Ghana.

It is being supported by the governments of Denmark and the Netherlands and managed by a consortium led by Ashesi University College with Ernst and Young, SNV Netherlands Development Organization, and the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.

The Centre’s key focus is on businesses operating in the areas of energy efficiency, domestic waste management, solar energy, water supply management and purification, and climate-smart agriculture.