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An inclusive ecotourism green finance funding model for South Africa

Climate change is occurring at a fast pace, and GHG emissions have already been locked in for future negative impacts. Marginalised communities bear the disproportionate burden of adapting to the negative impacts of climate change, due to unemployment and the lack of access to basic infrastructure....

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Main Author: Mabe, Isang Tebogo
Other Authors: Kabinga, Mundia
Format: Thesis
Language:English
English
Published: Graduate School of Business (GSB) 2025
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access_status_str Open Access
author Mabe, Isang Tebogo
author2 Kabinga, Mundia
author_browse Kabinga, Mundia
Mabe, Isang Tebogo
author_facet Kabinga, Mundia
Mabe, Isang Tebogo
author_sort Mabe, Isang Tebogo
collection Thesis
description Climate change is occurring at a fast pace, and GHG emissions have already been locked in for future negative impacts. Marginalised communities bear the disproportionate burden of adapting to the negative impacts of climate change, due to unemployment and the lack of access to basic infrastructure. Addressing the negative impacts of climate change, and transitioning marginalised communities to climate change resilience, requires long-term sustainable commitments and community inclusion in industry projects. However, literature presumes a dichotomy between local community inclusion and the financial sustainability of the underlying project. South Africa has one of the most unequal societies in the world, due to labour income being vastly unequal among the various communities. In addition, the country is faced with a poor sovereign credit rating, which results in expensive traditional funding mechanisms, and a dearth of concessional green finance. Large sectors, such as energy and tourism, which contribute to significant GHG emissions, have not been investigated adequately for rapid decarbonisation in a sustainable local community inclusive approach. Consequently, this current research explores the incentives needed to stimulate the financial services sector to invest in sustainable green projects. A qualitative case study was conducted to determine how South Africa could be accelerated to a low carbon economy, through the lens of ecotourism or the energy sector. Interviews were conducted with experienced deal makers from 3 different financial services organisations involved in the energy and tourism sectors. The findings of this current research revealed that global actors with good sovereign credit ratings can provide largescale concessional green finance to de-risk projects, and create an enabling environment for local community inclusion. Additionally, cross sectorial collaborations enable a rapid decarbonisation of the ecotourism sector; however, energy demands far outstrip the available energy supply, making it challenging to decarbonise the energy sector. The findings also revealed a misalignment between global, national, and financial services actors to stimulate and incentivise investments in sustainable green projects, caused by competing objectives.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language English
eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:48.261Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2025
publishDateRange 2025
publishDateSort 2025
publisher Graduate School of Business (GSB)
publisherStr Graduate School of Business (GSB)
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/41026 An inclusive ecotourism green finance funding model for South Africa Mabe, Isang Tebogo Kabinga, Mundia climate change Climate change is occurring at a fast pace, and GHG emissions have already been locked in for future negative impacts. Marginalised communities bear the disproportionate burden of adapting to the negative impacts of climate change, due to unemployment and the lack of access to basic infrastructure. Addressing the negative impacts of climate change, and transitioning marginalised communities to climate change resilience, requires long-term sustainable commitments and community inclusion in industry projects. However, literature presumes a dichotomy between local community inclusion and the financial sustainability of the underlying project. South Africa has one of the most unequal societies in the world, due to labour income being vastly unequal among the various communities. In addition, the country is faced with a poor sovereign credit rating, which results in expensive traditional funding mechanisms, and a dearth of concessional green finance. Large sectors, such as energy and tourism, which contribute to significant GHG emissions, have not been investigated adequately for rapid decarbonisation in a sustainable local community inclusive approach. Consequently, this current research explores the incentives needed to stimulate the financial services sector to invest in sustainable green projects. A qualitative case study was conducted to determine how South Africa could be accelerated to a low carbon economy, through the lens of ecotourism or the energy sector. Interviews were conducted with experienced deal makers from 3 different financial services organisations involved in the energy and tourism sectors. The findings of this current research revealed that global actors with good sovereign credit ratings can provide largescale concessional green finance to de-risk projects, and create an enabling environment for local community inclusion. Additionally, cross sectorial collaborations enable a rapid decarbonisation of the ecotourism sector; however, energy demands far outstrip the available energy supply, making it challenging to decarbonise the energy sector. The findings also revealed a misalignment between global, national, and financial services actors to stimulate and incentivise investments in sustainable green projects, caused by competing objectives. 2025-02-26T08:28:09Z 2025-02-26T08:28:09Z 2024 2025-02-26T08:25:00Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters MBA http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41026 en eng application/pdf Graduate School of Business (GSB) Faculty of Commerce University of Cape Town
spellingShingle climate change
Mabe, Isang Tebogo
An inclusive ecotourism green finance funding model for South Africa
thesis_degree_str Master's
title An inclusive ecotourism green finance funding model for South Africa
title_full An inclusive ecotourism green finance funding model for South Africa
title_fullStr An inclusive ecotourism green finance funding model for South Africa
title_full_unstemmed An inclusive ecotourism green finance funding model for South Africa
title_short An inclusive ecotourism green finance funding model for South Africa
title_sort inclusive ecotourism green finance funding model for south africa
topic climate change
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/41026
work_keys_str_mv AT mabeisangtebogo aninclusiveecotourismgreenfinancefundingmodelforsouthafrica
AT mabeisangtebogo inclusiveecotourismgreenfinancefundingmodelforsouthafrica