Green Campus GH wins ‘greengo’ contest

A social venture, Green Campus GH engaged in manufacturing biodegradable trash bags and recycling waste materials has emerged the winner of the 'GreenGo’ contest.

The contest was held as part of this year’s Social Media Week (SMW) in Accra.

The prize package is a $10,000.00 worth of incubation support and other learning opportunities from the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC), a pioneering business incubator with a unique focus of developing entrepreneurs in Green Economy.

'GreenGo’ refers to the green heroes of the environment who are saving the natural ecology by offering and providing environmentally sustainable solutions and products to the general populace.

This year’s SMW, a news platform, and a worldwide conference adopted climate change adaptation, green businesses and innovation as one of the major issues discussed as well as highlighting the work of Ghanaian entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers who through their inventions were providing solutions to mitigating the adverse effect of climate change.

Mr Ahuma Adodoadji, Marketing and Communications Director at Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC), said the completion was first of its kind that sought to bring like-minded business to interact, explore areas of synergy in the green business.

“Since GCIC started a number of green business have received mentorship but we realized there are many more who have not benefited yet.

“Each business in the green space has a unique problem it is addressing so we found it prudent to allow a few to present their models to enable GCIC support it,” he stated.

Touching on the effect of climate change, he said the phenomena had manifested on the entire globe and particularly on developing countries including Ghana hence the need to create more awareness and adopt appropriate mitigation measures to survive.

Mr. Adodoadji assured of GCIC’s commitment to complementing efforts of government and other stakeholders through mentoring entrepreneurs to promote technologies and innovations.

In the area of energy efficiency, water purification, domestic waste management, solar energy and climate-smart agriculture to enable people to take advantage of the available opportunities to ensure food security and stimulate green business.

Papa Yaw Agyekum Chief Executive Officer of Green Campus GH, expressed appreciation to GCIC for the opportunity to learn more about climate change.

He indicated that the initiative, which started in 2016, as a way of dealing with the inconvenience that came with emptying his dustbin, had grown into an entity that was helping in the fight against the sanitation through the use of trash bags.

Papa Yaw Agyekum said becoming a GreenGo had boosted his confidence to intensify his sanitation campaign across the country.

“My business is a growing success story and my specific goal is to be a waste management embassy in Ghana and I believe GCIC’s incubator programme will help me achieve that,” he stated.

The company he said had established offices in other universities to help to inculcate into the youth good sanitation values to complement effort toward ensuring environmental cleanliness in the country.

Papa Agyakum hinted that the firm’s plant had the capacity of producing 500,000 pieces of biodegradable trash bags but had a strategy to grow the business exponentially.

As part of the Social Media Week celebrations, the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre also launched the ‘DO BETTER, GO GREEN’ campaign that seeks to educate people on the effects of climate change.