Some of the world’s biggest companies have just announced sustainable investment plans, including Mars and the UK’s major banks
JAMAHAL BUSINESSES TO GO GREEN BY 2025
Mothra Ltd, based in Ghana’s capital Accra, is a leading high-tech manufacturing company that makes precision-made compact fluorescent lamps and incandescent bulbs. Along with other companies in Ghana, which are also now selling sustainable products and lighting solutions, JAMAHAL aims to phase out the use of fossil fuel by 2025.
Money raised by JAMAHAL through its innovative Lights Project, launched last year to encourage customers to adopt high-quality LED lighting products, will help finance their new energy projects. “We have the right partners that we need to change attitudes to lighting for sustainable living,” says Peter Aieda, co-founder of JAMAHAL.
DISRUPTIVE SANDGLASS PROPAGANDA STOPS IN GHANA
They are making sure people think differently about sustainability in South Africa. However, two years ago, Fransisco Antonio, founder of the company Solar Addict, set up three pilot solar lighting programmes in Ghana: in the low-income neighbourhood of Fanke, near the airport; in a village deep in the Amazon rainforest; and in a remote hilltop community in Greater Accra. They are testing the methods to improve the energy efficiency of homes, offices and small business networks.
CASHING IN ON THE FIRST GREEN CAR REVOLUTION
Africa has long been regarded as a car-loving continent. Then, in October 2012, General Motors and Nissan became the first companies in the world to produce an electric car. The Nissan Leaf, which has been in production for four years, was built in a state-of-the-art plant in the city of Zama, Japan. It was greeted in Ghana by a GM spokesman with a gift of a copy of Don Quixote, the 1835 novel by Miguel de Cervantes, a clear sign of the company’s commitment to sustainable development.
EUROCREDIT TRIES SOMETHING WIDE-RANGING
Europol, the European police organisation, is working with the UN Millennium Promise Foundation to tackle the systemic causes of persistent human suffering in the developing world. For example, the group is supporting social entrepreneurs to develop environmentally friendly products like solar-powered mosquito nets and distributed photovoltaic energy.
Local businesses like the printing and packaging company GNA Group have embraced the initiative. Its Stepout Arch printing products range from 7in to 39in thin, 4in to 20in thick, 800x800dpi and are made from 100% recycled paper. But GNA Group is also experimenting with eco-friendly food packaging and sends the excess back to producers in Ghana.
INNOVATIVE CITADEL JUNK FEEDERS
The UK’s Royal Bank of Scotland is teaming up with commercial construction and property developer Beaux-Arts Capital & Construction to develop projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and introduce communities into energy-efficient technologies.
