Local manufacturers of improved stoves aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions are being urged to leverage carbon financing opportunities to subsidize their operations.
Carbon finance is a term used to access financing to purchase greenhouse gas emission reductions in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Countries.
According to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Innohub, a business consulting firm, Nelson Amo, noted that the demand to access funding opportunities by businesses within the clean cooking sector keeps increasing, consequently, the necessity for stakeholders to be guided to enable them to resolve their demand.
The CEO made these remarks when he spoke to the media at the networking event for the Clean Cooking Alliance Venture Accelerator Bootcamp held at the Peduase Resort in Aburi in the Eastern Region.
Nelson Amo revealed that the key obstacle inhibiting businesses within the clean cooking sector is a lack of knowledge of the requirements for accessing carbon finance opportunities.
“Businesses hear about the carbon market everywhere, but there is no clarity on what it takes to get there. The first thing that comes to mind when you engage businesses is the level of secrecy, lack of understanding, and complexity around the subject matter,” he said.
As such, he noted that his outfit, in partnership with Clean Cooking Alliance, organized a week-long workshop that brought together entrepreneurs from eight countries in West Africa to understand the requirements for accessing carbon finance.
For her part, Lindsay Umalla, Director of Country Transition at CCA, said the adoption of clean cooking alternatives has become crucial in reducing the adverse impact of climate change by 2030.
She noted that the CCA is addressing the challenge of affordability for clean cooking projects by providing assistance for industry players to seek carbon finance.
One of the participants, who is also the CEO of Sustainable Energy Technologies Limited, Lovans Owusu-Takyi, underscored the need to strengthen local manufacturers of enhanced stoves to access financing opportunities to prevent them from “dying out of business.”