Green entrepreneurs need finance, market access to scale up

Green entrepreneurs in Bangladesh continue to struggle with early-stage funding, market access and long-term technical support despite the country’s strong policy ambition on climate finance, speakers said at a webinar yesterday.

These issues need to be resolved, alongside closer public-private collaboration, to enable green businesses to grow, they said at the webinar on “Green Business in Bangladesh” organised by The Daily Star.

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ASM Marjan Nur, climate and environment adviser at the British High Commission in Dhaka, said Bangladesh already has good policies to promote green entrepreneurship, but greater predictability in implementation remains a major challenge.

Many young entrepreneurs have innovative ideas but struggle to turn those into bankable businesses as early-stage finance is difficult to access and many lack collateral, business histories or established networks, he said.

“Finance is not enough,” he said, adding that entrepreneurs also need mentoring, technical support, certification and assistance in developing business models.

Marjan noted that Development partners can play a strong convening role by connecting entrepreneurs with governments, financial institutions, established companies, universities and technical experts

Besides, they can also support incubation, market testing, investment readiness and blended finance, he added.

He identified market access as another major constraint, saying young businesses need stronger links to government procurement systems, corporate supply chains and export markets.

AKM Sohel, additional secretary at the Economic Relations Division under the finance ministry, said Bangladesh faces a huge climate financing requirement and needs greater climate literacy across government, banks and financial markets.

The government is pursuing a whole-of-government approach and has set up the Bangladesh Climate Development Platform to improve coordination among development partners, academia, businesses and government agencies, he said. The government is also working to develop a carbon market framework, which could open new opportunities for carbon business, he added.

Zunaed Rabbani, a consultant on agri-food systems and private-sector engagement, said green businesses must be market-oriented and profitable to draw private investment. He said private-sector participation in green business will increase if it can be clearly explained to the market that investing in such businesses does not mean “your profit will go down, rather your profit will increase”.

Farmers need to see clear financial benefits from climate-smart and green practices rather than relying only on incentives, he said, calling for aggregation and cluster-based transitions since individual farmers cannot easily shift to greener production while neighbouring farms continue intensive chemical use.

Concessional loans could encourage young entrepreneurs to invest in solar irrigation, drip irrigation, urea deep placement and waste-minimising enterprises, Zunaed said.

Shakila Sattar Trina, founder of The Earth Society, an NGO that works to ensure sustainability of the Sundarbans, said Bangladesh has focused heavily on early-stage incubation but lacks adequate support for entrepreneurs seeking to scale.

Many entrepreneurs move from one competition to another after receiving initial grants, while long-term funding and mentoring remain insufficient, she said. She called for more locally adapted incubation and acceleration programmes, technical support for prototyping, corporate testing opportunities and long-term, market-driven mentorship.

“There are small gaps” across the ecosystem, she said, adding that identifying those gaps and building proper connections could make the journey from an idea to scaling much smoother.

Khadem Mahmud Yusuf, managing director and CEO of Bangladesh Petrochemical Company Limited, highlighted policy, market and infrastructure gaps in the plastic waste management and recycling sector.

He said the supply chain remained fragmented and largely informal, while low-value plastics such as polythene bags lacked effective collection infrastructure.

He called for formalising the informal supply chain, designing products for circularity, strengthening collection systems through extended producer responsibility and creating minimum usage requirements for recycled materials.

Nazmul Ahsan, lead for Youth Resilience and Climate Justice at ActionAid Bangladesh, stressed the need for an inclusive and just transition.

Ahsan said green entrepreneurship and green jobs must address divisions in access to skills, technology and finance, particularly for excluded and marginalised communities.

He called this a “triple A” approach—access to skills, access to technology and access to finance—and said policies must be translated into action-oriented, locally relevant business cases.

He also stressed the need for grassroots incubation, market-oriented skills and different forms of incentives, including mentorship, ecosystem development and market connections.