By Lyn Hoare [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons
This article was originally published on Eco-Business.
“East Africa’s Kariba Dam is almost empty due to diminishing rains. In Brazil, Sao Paulo’s reservoirs were reduced to dried mud three years ago, and experts say the city is heading toward another dry spell. Catastrophic floods recently wreaked havoc in southern England, Texas and Bangkok.
These are not simply one-off events; they represent systemic failures in water infrastructure development—failures that are increasing in frequency and severity as Earth’s climate shifts.
A new financial mechanism—“green bonds” that pay for using ecosystems as “natural infrastructure” for clean, ample water—can help.
Green bonds for natural infrastructure
Most people think of water infrastructure as dams, pipes and water treatment plants. Natural infrastructure like healthy forests, farms, rivers and wetlands can also address supply and quality challenges by filtering water, buffering against floods and regulating flow. Combining built and natural forms of infrastructure – for example, by restoring a forest that surrounds a water treatment plant—combines the benefits of both systems. These hybrid approaches often save money, increase the lifespan of built infrastructure, improve resiliency to climate change and produce co-benefits like reduced carbon emissions, recreation, rural jobs and habitat protection.
Read on at: Eco-Business.
See how YESBank are using the Natural Capital Protocol to measure the impact and dependencies of the projects funded by their green bonds here.
