This week (19 June 2017) AER President Magnus Berntsson was elected R20 (regions of climate action) President by the R20 Governing Board and General Assembly.
AER and R20 have enjoyed a close relationship over the last years, leading to a smooth and almost expected result.
But where do we stand in our alliance with the R20 to help regions fund their green transition ?
Lately, AER has been a contributor to the R20 campaign « 100 climate solutions projects campaign » with 36 projects from AER members proposed for financing. This important step was crucial to show doubtful investors that regions had well planned projects ready for investments. Thank you again to all AER members who participated in this call and whose projects will be further considered when the venture succeeds.
(for further information on the campaign see here)
With investors reassured, it is now a second phase that opens in front of us: securing a wide range of funds from different actors in order to actually help finance these regional projects.
To that end, R20 is working on an important dedicated impact investment fund with a worldwide recognised and UN founded impact investment fund manager : Blue Orchard. This new fund, named Subnational Climate Fund aims at reaching 350 million USD to finance regional projects all across the globe. This will allow access to first loss equity parts (20% to 30%) of CAPEX of the green infrastructure projects. Such investments will then allow for securing debt from subnational and national governments as well as development banks.
In parallel, the Leonardo di Caprio Foundation is developing a 1 billion USD Planet Pledge Fund, which will allow complementary equity investment in the same portfolio of projects.
This evolution makes R20 a leading alliance of sub-national governments, private companies and finance institutions enabling the shift to the green economy.
The fight to get public and development banks as well as institutional support is underway. AER has been an instrumental driving force in helping the R20 and Blue Orchard to have access to the right people in the European Union and at the European Investment Bank. Very active in this process, AER has not been communicating much about this activity as discretion is key in this phase of the work.
Our joint AER/R20 aim is to become, more than a lobbying or exchange of best practice platform on green issues, an actual concrete action and finance nexus at regional level.
The fight continues and we count on your support in the months to come.
