One way of overcoming current challenges is through collaboration- in unexpected ways- with other businesses. GCIC started operation in 2016 as a green incubator working with businesses in five focus areas – Energy Efficiency, Domestic Waste Management, Water Purification and Management, Climate Smart Agriculture and Solar Energy. Since its inception, GCIC has incubated 32 businesses and with an increasing number of entrepreneurs, the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre, is creating a collaborative network of entrepreneurs.
Nicole Poindexter, Founder, Black Star Energy
Kwami Williams, Co-Founder, Moringa Connect
One of such collaborations is between two GCIC entrepreneurs, Moringa Connect Company Limited and Black Star Energy. Moringa Connect, a business led by Kwami Williams and located in the Brong Ahafo region, is helping to mitigate the effects of climate change in Ghana through climate smart farming of the moringa crop. The company uses its vertically integrated supply chain to turn nutritious moringa leaves and seeds into moringa-powered superfood beverages, snacks and clean beauty products. A key component of Moringa Connect’s farm is a good supply of water via irrigation and this served as perfect opportunity for collaboration between the two businesses – the use of solar powered pumps for water irrigation. Black Star Energy is led by Nicole Poindexter and provides clean energy via solar powdered micro grids to communities and business that aren’t connected to the national grid.
By the provision of solar powered pumps, Moringa Connect hopes to scale up their business to increase their production and the income of the small holder farming communities they work with.
Another such synergy brewing in the pipeline is between Das Biogas Construction Ltd and Farmable Limited. Das Biogas, which provides and installs portable biogas plants to treat organic waste, will be installing a bio-digester for Farmable Ltd at their ranch to be located in Dodowa. The installation of the bio-digester will mean Farmable has a zero-waste ranch where organic waste from the ranch will be used to generate energy for selected uses.
Collaboration is no longer just a strategy, it is one of the keys to long-term business success and competitiveness.
The Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC) is a pioneering business incubator whose objective is to support entrepreneurs and ventures involved in developing profitable and locally appropriate solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation in Ghana. The Centre’s key focus is on building businesses operating within the areas of energy efficiency, domestic waste management, solar energy, water supply management and purification and climate-smart agriculture. GCIC is part of the World Bank Group’s infoDev Climate Technology Program. Supported by the governments of Denmark and the Netherlands, the Centre is managed by a consortium led by the Ashesi University College and including Ernst & Young, SNV Ghana, and the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.