GenZero, a subsidiary of global investment company Temasek based in Singapore has hinted at plans to invest in a forest restoration project in Ghana.
Businesses in Singapore, according to The Straits Times, can potentially use the credits to offset part of their carbon tax.
GenZero is collaborating with AJA Climate Solutions, another Singapore-based firm, to pump almost $30mn “to restore about 100,000ha of degraded land in the Kwahu region of Ghana,” said GenZero chief executive Frederick Teo on the sidelines of the Ecosperity Week conference.
The funds will be deployed progressively across the project’s two stages – with the first phase set to start in the last quarter of 2023 and the second phase in 2027, Straits Times added.
Speaking at a media briefing in Accra on Tuesday (20 June), regional group director for Sub-Saharan Africa of Singapore Enterprise Rahul Ghosh said there are more such projects in the pipeline.
“GenZero is going to make some significant investment here, I think it is just the first of many, we are receiving at the moment a few more of such projects.
“But where we are, is the early stage, because there is quite a lot of work that needs to be done, there are multiple stakeholders in such projects, so there is obviously the environmental part of it, but there are communities of course that depend on that,” Ghosh said.
“So, the conversation involves multiple stakeholders and to really understand what the needs are, because money doesn’t solve everything, you have to create alternate livelihood and change in behavior that is required,” Ghosh added.