Meet Yaw Boateng, the Managing Director of Lifestyle Creations, a furniture manufacturing company based in Tema, a city on the Bight of Benin and Atlantic coast of Ghana. It is located 25 kilometres east of the capital city of Accra, in the region of Greater Accra.
Easy going and with the artist name of Zuzu, Boateng introduces his country as the centre of the world on latitude zero and longitude zero; perhaps a prequel to his inspiring story in greening his business.
“I give life to dead wood,” says Boateng. “I turn waste wood into a resource and make it into something usable.”
Lifestyle Creations uses waste wood and wooden pallets to produce its furniture and other products like canteens and mobile food vans to reduce environmental impacts and contribute to the local economy. Sometimes back an alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverage for both export and domestic market known as Distell Ghana Limited, was closing. As part of the decommissioning of the company’s operations, the company generated enormous amounts of wood from equipment casing which it was finding difficult to dispose of.
Through Ghana National Cleaner Production Centre (GNCPC) which works with SWITCH Africa Green Programme facilitated the synergy between the two companies when they both participated in the Industrial Symbiosis Training Programme. Through a project, Enhancing Resource Productivity And Environmental Performance of MSMES In 6 African Countries through the concept of Industrial Symbiosis (IS), Distell Ghana contacted the GNCPC to help facilitate her to sell some of the waste wood to Lifestyle Creations. Lifestyle Creations subsequently went on to purchase 200 pieces of wooden boards.
“I became part of SWITCH Africa Green because it was actually was my first time to go into a programme like that in Ghana where they talked about waste in detail in a language that I could understand. ,” Boateng continues.
Lifestyle Creations intends to move into the upcycling of other waste streams such as car tires. The activities of Lifestyle Creations clearly show that there is a potential market for repurposed wood and upcycled artefacts and products.
Environmentally, synergy between Distell and Lifestyle Creations resulted initially in more than 4500 kg of waste wood being diverted from a landfill and Green House Gases (GHG) savings of 8136 kg CO2 equivalent. Distell Ghana was also able to safely dispose of the waste wood without incurring any cost. These are just examples of how this company has helped in greening its business and therefore conserving the environment.
The company has continued to train other people by allowing them to participate in apprenticeship placings to study the art of reusing waste wood for various wooden products and furniture. This has equipped the young men and women with skills for self-employment.
“It is all waste wood but at the same time, it is treated waste wood that can be used for something meaningful in this part of our world,” Boateng sums up. “But what is important to our environment is switching Africa green.”
