The Caribbean Climate-Smart
Accelerator Story

The genesis of the Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator (CCSA) emerged from an urgent regional imperative: to build resilience against severe climate risks, such as catastrophic hurricanes, rising sea levels, and energy dependence. It aimed to achieve this by uniting project implementation, catalytic investment, and entrepreneurship across the Caribbean.

Announced in 2018 at President Emmanuel Macron’s One Planet Summit in Paris, the CCSA was championed by Prime Ministers Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica, Keith Mitchell of Grenada, and Allen Chastanet of Saint Lucia, alongside Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson.

This coalition established a shared vision: to accelerate regional climate action, foster green job creation, and drive sustainable development toward creating the world's first Climate-Smart Zone.

Following its announcement, the Accelerator entered an initial incubation phase and formally registered as a non-profit organization in Barbados in 2020.

This foundational period was enabled through strategic backing from CARICOM, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Virgin Unite, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank, philanthropic partners, and an initial Board of Directors.

To establish operational independence, Sir Richard Branson hosted the Island 1.5 Gathering fundraising event on Necker Island in 2020 to secure initial operational funding. In parallel, the CCSA developed its core operating framework, recruited its leadership team, finalized key operational donors, and refined its strategic roadmap to respond to evolving regional priorities.

By 2021, with the leadership team fully onboarded under Chief Executive Officer Racquel Moses, the organization began active implementation across the Caribbean.

The team re-engaged coalition countries (now spanning 29 territories) and regional partners, launched early priority initiatives, reassessed the regional project pipeline, and adapted its strategy to support sustainable economic recovery amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through 2022 and 2023, the CCSA focused on executing core priorities. These included matchmaking investors with high-potential opportunities, aggregating projects across sectors and geographies to achieve economies of scale, promoting climate technology innovation, and driving regional climate advocacy.

Initiatives such as Climate-Smart Agriculture, the Climate Smart Map, and regular Investor Forums were launched to bridge critical data and implementation gaps across the Caribbean ecosystem.

As the CCSA’s matchmaking and pipeline efforts matured, insights from regional project reviews revealed a systemic challenge: while many indigenous solutions were inherently shovel-worthy, they lacked the technical preparation, financial structuring, and capacity required to become truly shovel-ready for large-scale institutional capital.

To address this persistent gap in pipeline development and climate finance mobilization, the CCSA launched the Innovation Fund Caribbean during New York Climate Week 2024.

By equipping Caribbean entrepreneurs with project design support, deal room preparation, and catalytic seed funding, the Innovation Fund transforms early-stage initiatives into investment-ready ventures that can scale across the region.