The Director of Environment at the Ministry of Envi­ronment, Science, Technology and In­novation, Dr Peter Dery, has observed that the recently launched Green Finance Taxono­my will help enhance the country’s strategy to mobilise resources to support green investment.

He commended the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for the initia­tive noting that “this will prevent greenwashing and this is why the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MES­TI) fully endorses this initiative.”

Greenwashing is the act of mak­ing false or misleading statements about the environmental benefits of a product or practice.

Dr Dery, speaking at a meeting organised by the Finance ministry on the sidelines of the ongoing COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, cited several instances where MESTI had turned down project documents because thorough assessment of those projects’ methodologies and baselines revealed clear instances of greenwashing.

“So MESTI will use this Green Finance Taxonomy launched by the Ministry of Finance to revise existing policies and frameworks to guide our selection for green investment in Ghana and help re­form our own architecture towards attracting green investment,” he assured.

Dr Dery called on relevant institutions such as the National Development Planning Commis­sion and other regulatory agencies to institutionalise policies and legis­lations to back the main objectives of the Green Finance Taxonomy to “ensure effective industry compli­ance and prevent greenwashing.