Businesses in Ghana and Africa have been challenged to take the necessary steps in ensuring that a green-culture is instilled into all their operations.

According to the Director of Logistics and Value Chain at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Papa Bartels ensuring business activities across all sectors of the economy are executed with the environment in mind, is the surest way businesses could be sustained.

He stated that Ghanaian and African businesses in particular, need to go green “and the reason why we need to do that is to ensure that whatever we do in enterprise development especially, we should infuse greenness into the activities that we undertake.”

This for him would ensure sustainability and would also ensure that the continent is able to protect its environment to create jobs for its people.

Mr. Bartels was speaking at a Regional Forum dubbed “Greening Industries and Green Entrepreneurship Promotion as a driver of Sustainable and Inclusive growth in Rural Africa”. In going green, “nothing should be wasted. Every bit of whatever we do should either be ploughed back into the enterprise that we are developing or it should go into broadening that particular activity” Mr. Bartels added.

Some participants told Joy Business they were impressed by the practical tools they were equipped with, to be able to monitor and report on performance of industry players in respect of how their operations affect the environment. They however, called on stakeholders to ensure the forum would not be a talk-shop.