586 jobs, strong carbon savings: Climate Innovation Centre highlights incubatees’ impact in 2022 as it welcomes new cohort

26 incubatees welcomed into Cohort 8 of the Climate Innovation Centre

Story in Brief

• The Ghana Climate Innovation Center (GCIC), an Ashesi institute, has welcomed 26 entrepreneurs into its incubator programme in a ceremony held at the end of July. (Meet the entrepreneurs)
• The business incubator program, in partnership with Global Affairs Canada, is part of the University’s efforts to help grow small businesses and startups as well as increase climate adaptability and resilience in Ghana.
• This year, entrepreneurs who graduated from the Centre had created 586 jobs, helped save 298,647 MT of carbon emissions by the end of their incubation period, and reached 3,000 households with their products and services.

Go Further
The 26 new fellows comprise the eighth cohort of entrepreneurs to be welcomed into the Climate Innovation Centre’s incubator programme. The businesses span electric transport, climate-smart agriculture, waste management, energy efficiency, water purification, menstrual hygiene, cosmetics, and packaging. The ceremony was attended by Shauna Flanagan, First Secretary at Global Affairs Canada, who took the opportunity to interact with the entrepreneurs, learning more about their businesses and the invaluable work they are doing for a sustainable future. Global Affairs Canada partnered with the Climate Innovation Centre in 2022 to enable at least 240 green entrepreneurs in Ghana to scale their businesses through access to the Centre’s incubation services.

The ceremony also marked the graduation of the Climate Innovation Centre’s seventh cohort of 22 entrepreneurs, who completed one year of incubation. Ruka Sanusi, the Executive Director of the Centre, congratulated this cohort for their growth during the past year and encouraged the Centre’s new group of incubatees to draw inspiration from the graduating cohort.

“Our journey towards sustainable e-commerce received a considerable boost when we became a part of the GCIC,” reads a blog post from e-commerce and courier service platform Shaq Express, which was part of the graduating cohort. “This program was not just an incubator but a catalyst, fuelling our aspiration to grow as a green business. They equipped us with many resources and expert mentors, as well as providing us with valuable partnerships.”