CARIBSAVE doing its part to help sustain businesses

With funds received from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Programme (SGP), CARIBSAVE embarked on an initiative to help a number of businesses in the agricultural and tourism sectors, enhance their sustainability.

 

Nicholas Grainger, Deputy Director at CARIBSAVE, acknowledged the above as he spoke with The Barbados Advocate whilst at the recently held Green Knowledge Fair, hosted by the GEF SGP at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre. 

 

CARIBSAVE is a regional, not-for-profit organisation that works with and supports societies, economies, communities and environments in responding to a changing climate; providing innovative, dynamic and evidence-based tools and solutions. Grainger explained just how the organisation was able to able to reach out to persons in the agriculture and tourism sectors, once becoming a GEF SGP grantee.

 

“Through the GEF Small Grants Programme, CARIBSAVE received funding to basically help farmers fisherfolk, persons in the tourism and craft sector become more resilient to the impact of climate change and extreme weather events. What we did is that we piloted a micro finance mechanism, which was a combination of a loan and a grant. Once these funds were received by the beneficiaries, they then used them to purchase photovoltaic systems, some used it to build rain water harvesting systems, some just actually bought a solar dryer in terms of agro- processing. So the idea is that not only would they become more resilient to climate change, but they would also reduce their carbon footprint and enhance the sustainability of their businesses,” Grainger stated.

 

Having set up a booth at the Green Knowledge Fair to showcase CARIBSAVE’s work, Grainger noted that he especially wanted to show young persons that there are innovative ways in which they can get involved in the agricultural sector and thereby make a living.

 

“This fair actually gives you an idea of what Barbadians are doing, what each sector is doing and what kind of innovation is going on in the agricultural sector especially. And what we are trying to do is actually revive the agricultural sector. [Agriculture] is seen as a very ageing profession and we are trying to get a lot more young people involved, to show them it is not necessarily limited to the things we were doing forty to fifty years ago. 

 

“There are a lot easier mechanisms which you could put in place to kind of help yourself become more resilient to climate change, and a lot of it has to do with technology which could interest young people and could actually [provide them with] a sustainable living,” he said. (RSM)