District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) created a municipal bond that covers the downside risk of using green infrastructure to control stormwater runoff. By offloading risk to investors, the utility drew new financing -and time to get its practices right. Now other cities are following its lead.
This historic image shows Republic Iron and Steel Works,
a factory that was in Youngstown, Ohio in the early 20th century.
Today, Youngstown has experienced a decline in its manufacturing
economy, leading to poverty and crime. Green infrastructure can
help make Youngstown and similar communities safer and healthier.
Flickr
In a few Rust Belt cities that are seeking economic and social benefits, Greenprint Partners – formerly known as Fresh Coast Capital – is breaking new ground by financing fresh solutions for green stormwater infrastructure. It is using a combination of municipal, private and government resources. Its goals are to...
Rain gardens built by District Stormwater, LLC, in partnership
with Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Washington,
generate over 90,000 SRCs annually at the historic Mount Olivet
Cemetery.
Severn Smith/The Nature Conservancy
The Washington, DC Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE)’s Stormwater Retention Credit Program takes a unique approach to attracting private capital to effectively leverage public funds. DOEE’s financial commitment to managing its stormwater challenges and proactive transparency in working with investors have created an attractive opportunity for private investment.
The National Philanthropic Trust’s 2017 Donor-Advised Fund Report found that the capital housed in donor-advised funds across the United States exceeded $85 billion in 2016. This represents an almost 10-percent increase since 2015 and a 28-percent increase since 2012.
Sustainable forestry represents a major portion of conservation finance’s investable landscape. According to a 2016 Forest Trends report, “State of Private Investment in Conservation 2016,” sustainable timberland investments accounted for approximately 34 percent of all private conservation investments from 2004 to 2015.
Conservation managers and entrepreneurs who are looking to make their projects stand out as investment opportunities should be sure to supply the information that investors want. Impact investing experts interviewed by
Network expressed a surprising lack of interest in most impact metrics and measurements aside from carbon sequestration...
There is a growing gap between available impact capital and conservation investments. This has become a major focal point for investment professionals in the field. One reason for this trend may be that conservation investments are not meeting investor expectations due to a lack of quality opportunities.
This article by Paula Chamas and Mark Berry is part of the
Network Toolkit, a resource designed for professionals who want to learn or communicate about the industry. Carbon stored in forests has become a great opportunity for conservation-minded landowners to obtain an additional stream of revenue.
The community of Ixtlán de Juárez in Oaxaca, Mexico is a great example of the multiple economic, ecological and social benefits of a sustainably managed community forest. Forest management and ownership has fostered social and economic prosperity in this community while protecting the unique environmental values of its land. It...
In this episode of the podcast "Voices of
," our guest was David Meyers, Senior Technical Advisor to the Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) at the United Nations Development Programme. He was also recently hired as the first Executive Director of Conservation Finance Alliance (CFA).
