Aoki, Homari2023-05-262023-05-262022https://hdl.handle.net/1813/113233As the world works towards curbing carbon emissions, promoting investment in renewable energy development within tourism can accelerate the clean energy transition. With a pledge to achieve 100% renewable energy use by 2050, Kenya has been one of the leaders in making the transition to clean energy within sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, Kenya is the largest tourist destination in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper will explore how Kenya's tourism industry can reduce greenhouse gases through transitioning to renewable energy. A literature review provides an analysis of the current solar energy portfolio in Kenya, policies surrounding tourism, and renewable energy development. The causal relationship between CO2 emissions, tourism, renewable energy, and gross domestic product (GDP) will be examined through the deployment of an autoregressive distributed lag model. A case study of three Machakos County enterprises will be presented, examining the economic, social, and environmental impacts of the development of private systems. Interviews with companies in the tourism sector on the benefits and challenges to transitioning to cleaner energy sources will be discussed. Policies, subsidies, and other external factors will be considered. This research will be focused on the question: How can the tourism sector in Kenya reduce their carbon footprint through renewable energy? Finally, recommendations will be made on how to further increase renewable energy adoption in the tourism sector. A set of policy recommendations will be developed.enAttribution 4.0 Internationaldissertation or thesis