AFRICA – The European Union (EU) has committed EUR19.7 million (US$23.89m) to Climate Investor Two (CI2), the second facility under the management of Climate Fund Managers (CFM), to expands the EU’s support for sustainable infrastructure in climate change adaptation sectors across global emerging markets.
This investment in CI2 is channelled through the EU’s partner bank, the Dutch Development Bank (FMO) and is the second CFM-managed facility to receive a commitment from the EU, joining the renewable energy focused Climate Investor One (CI1) which also benefitted from EU support.
CI2, which also enjoys cornerstone support from the Government of the Netherlands via the Dutch Fund for Climate and Development (DFCD), is a blended finance facility offering an integrated funding solution for commercially viable water, sanitation and oceans projects in emerging markets.
Using waste and wastewater as inputs for renewable energy generation, approximately 115 MW of renewable energy capacity and an additional 1,200 GWh of clean electricity will be provided annually.
The focus of CI2 is to form a direct response to both the threat that climate change poses to water security, and the threat that improper wastewater management poses to ecosystems.
The EU’s commitment to the facility is allocated across the two underlying funds of CI2, the CI2 Development Fund (DF2) and the CI2 Construction Equity Fund (CEF2). Through its allocation to DF2, the EU will provide scarce development capital to facilitate a pipeline of bankable water, sanitation and oceans projects.
In CEF2, the EU plays a key role in catalysing equity investors for the construction phase, where each EU dollar enables another four dollars of commercially sourced capital to be invested across the rest of the structure. In supporting CI2’s ability to catalyse commercial capital, the EU is enabling CI2 to achieve the scale needed to maximize its climate impact.
“Over its lifetime, Climate Investor Two will both mitigate the causes of climate change and help humans adapt to its consequences, by investing in some of the most underserved and impactful sectors,” Andrew Johnstone, CEO of CFM, said.
“We are very pleased to welcome the EU to the Climate Investor Two community. Their participation and support highlights the necessity to act now on all fronts against climate change.”
With its in-house engineering, financial, and environmental and social governance expertise, CFM takes an active role throughout all stages of a projects lifecycle. CI2 is expected to construct an additional 1.2 million m3 per day in water treatment capacity and 3.2 million m3 per day in wastewater treatment capacity, respectively.
As part of its water and sanitation investments, CI2 will also avoid greenhouse gas emissions. Using waste and wastewater as inputs for renewable energy generation, approximately 115 MW of renewable energy capacity and an additional 1,200 GWh of clean electricity will be provided annually.
CFM estimates that CI2 will provide improved access to safe drinking water for approximately 8 million people and reach an estimated 4 million people with improved access to treated wastewater in some of the world’s most vulnerable and polluted regions.
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