Entrepreneurship for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Nigeria and Ghana: Motivations, Challenges and Policy Implications

Sustainable entrepreneurship has gained growing research attention, but studies that dig deep into the emerging area of climate entrepreneurship remain scarce. There are currently very few studies that explored the motivations and challenges of climate entrepreneurship, and the African context has not received reasonable scholarly attention. Yet, this knowledge is relevant in the formulation and implementation of policies for climate change mitigation and adaptation in the region given the inevitable role of entrepreneurs. The aim of this study is to contribute to the scarce literature on the motivations and challenges of climate entrepreneurship in the context of emerging African economies by exploring the lived experiences of technology-driven climate entrepreneurs in the solar energy sector. A qualitative study involving 24 climate entrepreneurs in Nigeria and Ghana was undertaken by means of semi-structural online interviews. Inductive thematic analysis was performed on the generated data. Findings indicate that climate entrepreneurs are motivated by passion, opportunity, technology, empowerment, and training/education (POTENT), while they face financial, environmental, and weak policy formulation/implementation (FEW) as major challenges. By proposing the POTENT-FEW-Policy Model, the study provides directions that stimulate policies for enhancing the involvement of entrepreneurs in climate change mitigating and adaptation in Africa.