FICCI joins Green Infrastructure Investment Coalition at COP21 in Paris

FICCI has joined the Green Infrastructure Investment Coalition launched at the ongoing COP 21 in Paris, which aims to bring together investors, governments and development banks to help increase the flow of institutional investor capital to green infrastructure investments around the world. Shifting infrastructure to being low-carbon and climate-resilient (for example, clean energy, low carbon transport, green buildings) will require more investment upfront.

The Green Infrastructure Investment Coalition aims to address the investment challenge of building green infrastructure as it cannot be met with public sector funds and bank finance alone. A key task for the Coalition will be to look for ways to bridge risk gaps to ensure investment profiles can meet the needs of institutional investors. Apart from FICCI, around 11 other organisations from across the world have confirmed their participation in the Green Infrastructure Investment Coalition, including: the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), Legal & General Investment Management, AB (global investment-manager with USD464 billion under management); Pax World Management; The Regions20 Coalition; The European Investment Bank; IDBI; India’s Export Import Bank, the National Institute of Public Finance & Policy, Deutsche Bank and Investor Group on Climate Change. The Coalition will help its members to better understand the pipeline of green infrastructure investments; examine barriers to capital flows and propose solutions; shape the capital market instruments needed to ensure capital flows; and also support investors to review asset allocation strategies to make sure they will be able to take advantage of the huge deal flow on the horizon.

The Coalition will hold roundtables to find out about and discuss government green investment plans, including specific pipelines being developed by individual agencies such as State energy and rail companies. Major Coalition activities will include mapping of information such as infrastructure deals by governments to identify deal attributes and participating investors; constituting a Climate Finance Aggregation Platform to tap low-cost capital from bond markets; developing Green Bond Markets in countries such as India, Mexico, Turkey, Canada, California and Brazil; and launching of a “Guide for Scaling-up Green Bond Markets for Sustainable Development” for governments. The Coalition will also help countries to develop green investment plans needed to meet their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). FICCI had undertaken few initiatives in the realm of sustainable financing in the run up to COP 21, such as the “UNEP Conference on Delivering a Sustainable Financial System in India” and a “Conference on Green bonds”. By joining the Green Infrastructure Investment Coalition, FICCI has strengthened its support towards the need for bolstering sustainable financing in the country.