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Why Ontario’s SMEs Are Ready to Shine

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Ontario are pivotal to the province’s economy, yet they encounter several deal stoppers when it comes to reducing their carbon footprints. Limited access to economically viable decarbonization pathways prevents many of them from undertaking the deep retrofits required to reduce or remove emissions from their owned and operated facilities.

In our work with one such company, which owns its own portfolio of warehouses, we identified an exciting opportunity for these types of companies to get involved in Canada’s decarbonization efforts and energy transition. Implementing rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems gives SMEs a direct method to generate clean energy and decrease greenhouse gas emissions.​

Ontario is on the cusp of a substantial surge in electricity demand, projected to escalate by approximately 75% by 2050. This increase is driven by factors such as population growth, economic expansion, and the electrification of industry. Addressing this rising demand necessitates innovative strategies to alleviate potential grid congestion and ensure a stable energy supply. Distributed energy resources, like rooftop solar PV installations on SME premises, can play a crucial role in mitigating grid strain by generating electricity closer to the point of consumption, thereby reducing transmission losses and enhancing grid resilience.​

Scaling rooftop solar PV installations for SMEs in Ontario addresses critical needs by addressing the province’s escalating energy demand and grid congestion as well as promoting investment and job creation within the clean energy sector.

From Pilots to Paybacks: What One Warehouse in Mississauga Can Teach Us

To realize the benefits of rooftop solar PV adoption, SMEs must proactively assess their energy needs, explore financing mechanisms, and leverage available incentives to make installations economically feasible. This includes conducting site assessments, evaluating consumption patterns, and identifying peak demand charges that could be offset by solar generation.

In our efforts to advance clean energy adoption among SMEs, the Global Climate Finance Accelerator (GCFA) conducted a sample analysis of a commercial warehouse in Mississauga. Our case study illustrates how rooftop solar PV can be effectively integrated into a SME’s operations, highlighting technical feasibility, potential cost savings, and broader environmental and economic impacts. The findings provide a valuable reference for SMEs across Ontario looking to transition toward clean, distributed system energy solutions.

Five scenarios were evaluated, ranging from battery storage alone to combinations of rooftop solar, electric heating, and energy storage. The analysis was supported by the company’s consumption data and aimed to identify solutions that balance economic return and carbon reduction.

The lowest-cost option, a standalone battery system with 4 hours of storage, offered the shortest payback period of 4-5 years and attractive savings off the company’s annual electricity bill. It did little, however, to reduce emissions. Integrating 1.06 MW of rooftop solar PV with electrification of space heating was found to be the most economically viable path to decarbonization. This option showed a payback of 5-6 years and annual savings of nearly C$200,000. The business case was supported by recent federal incentives that yielded over $1.1 million, significantly reducing upfront capital costs.

More ambitious options, such as adding battery storage or electrifying both space and process heating offered greater emissions reductions but required significantly higher investments and longer payback periods. Our key takeaway is that SMEs don’t need to pursue complex solutions to help mitigate climate change. Targeted solar PV investments with heating electrification can yield meaningful climate benefits and attractive returns.

Scaling Solar: Finance, Securitization, and Canada’s Bright Rooftops

While this case study illustrates the business case for rooftop solar PV paired with heat electrification, realizing impact at scale requires moving beyond individual pilots. With over 14 GW of untapped rooftop solar potential across Ontario, the next step is unlocking the mechanisms that enable wide-scale adoption, particularly for SMEs, which are often hesitant to bootstrap upfront investment.

To scale adoption, a rooftop solar investment platform could aggregate commercial and industrial (C&I) projects, pool investor capital, and provide consistent returns through long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). GCFA modeling shows that bundling approximately 100 MW of generation capacity yields an ~12% internal rate of return. Scaling to 80 facilities could unlock ~500 MW, improving capital efficiency and ensuring predictable cash flows to reduce investor risk. On-Bill Financing (OBF) programs could accelerate update, which projects eventually securitized and sold to institutional investors. A municipal green bond would help derisk aggregated projects. The key to unlocking this opportunity in Ontario, however, is the launch of the IESO’s Local Generation Program, which is currently under development with a planned launch in 2026.

Beyond Ontario, Canada could draw inspiration from the U.S.-based Mosaic model, which demonstrates how asset-backed securitization (ABS) of residential solar loans finance distributed energy systems at scale. By combining aggregation, long-term contracts, and innovative financing instruments, Canada can activate its rooftop solar market empowering SMEs and accelerating each province’s clean energy transformation.

Industry feedback reinforces that scaling rooftop solar PV in Ontario and eventually across Canada requires a clear financial structure for securitization, strong partnerships with local distribution companies, and reliable energy offtake contracts to attract investor confidence. Addressing upfront deal costs and identifying ideal customer profiles, such as SMEs with high daytime loads and underutilized roof space, will be critical to designing a scalable, investment-ready model. With thoughtful implementation and alignment between policy, finance, and infrastructure, rooftop solar PV can become a cornerstone of Canada’s clean energy future, powered not just by technology, but by inclusive, locally driven climate action.

Deep is an Accelerator-in-Residence with the Global Climate Finance Accelerator. A dedicated energy management professional, he has a proven history of meeting company goals and helping businesses achieve their GHG and energy reduction targets. Deep is skilled in adapting to new challenges to help utilities find solutions to complex issues in the energy conservation and transition industry. He is excited to begin a new chapter as Consultant, Energy Transition at Posterity Group.

Along the coastlines of Africa, the ocean has always been more than water. It’s culture, it’s survival, and it’s currency. In climate finance, however, it has only recently become a market.

Project Ocean Love aims to shift that perspective. As a community-led environmental data monitoring solution, it is built to generate local, high-integrity data to help communities, governments, and businesses monitor the impact of changing weather on the natural environment. This solution enables local communities to identify adaptation measures to protect their homes and livelihoods. 

It isn’t just about protecting nature. It is about building a climate venture rooted in equity, infrastructure, and long-term ownership for women and youth in local communities.

Where Things Get Hard

Ocean Love reveals a hard truth in climate finance: most community-driven ventures stall between vision and viability.

To sell credits or high-value data, you need verified monitoring. To build monitoring infrastructure, you need capital.
To attract capital, you need proven results.

It’s the classic chicken-and-egg problem, especially in Africa where financing opportunities are bespoke, with lower deal values. As we strive for inclusive, community-first models, capital continues to prioritize ventures with short term, quantifiable, and low-risk returns. That leaves local ownership behind.

“We’ve been protecting this coastline long before the market cared about carbon,” Ocean Love founder Nikita Shiel-Rolle told us. It reframed what Ocean Love was truly about: not introducing stewardship but making room for it to lead.

Many ecological projects in Africa, such as soil regeneration and coastal conservation, provide immense environmental benefits but lack immediate revenue streams. These projects are therefore considered low-value in financial terms, as they do not generate direct income, which makes them difficult to fund through traditional investment channels. Exacerbating this challenge is the cost of financing in Africa. A solar farm in Germany, for example, needs a return of 7% on capital invested to break even. In Zambia, prohibitive lending rates for businesses raise the necessary return to a staggering 38%, according to the Climate Policy Initiative. Unless financing costs in the developing world are reduced, promising decarbonization projects will remain stalled, as the high price tag will make them economically infeasible.  

How We Make It Work

Pre-sale agreements for climate and environmental monitoring data can provide early-stage investors with assured future revenue streams, thereby enhancing the financial viability of projects. Carbon and biodiversity markets can also play a pivotal role. These markets are designed to channel investment into projects that create environmental credits, such as carbon offsets or biodiversity credits. These credits can be purchased through Article 6 agreements by governments to help meet their own Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) commitments, or, if structured with integrity, through the voluntary market by companies seeking to fulfill sustainability commitments. By allowing these markets to support non-revenue generating ecological services, they create a mechanism for financing projects that would otherwise remain unbankable.

Importantly, local communities must own and drive these investments, making capacity building up front an imperative. Foreign interests should not be the sole beneficiaries of carbon credits and offtake agreements. When the investment flow bypasses the local community, leaving them with precarious employment without an equity stake in their own future, the long-term impact is diminished. If these projects are to be truly sustainable and equitable, local communities must be empowered to take the lead and gain ownership, ensuring they benefit directly from the ecological services they are providing. Transparency and verified investment data can help reduce the financial risks for investors and unlock capital to support vital ecological services in emerging markets. A recent study by the International Monetary Fund highlighted that greater data transparency leads to a 15% reduction in the spreads on emerging market government bonds, effectively lowering borrowing costs for these nations. 

Why It Matters Now

Ocean Love isn’t just a project. It’s a signal—a signal that even the most aligned climate ventures will stall unless capital is structured to fund the first mile, not just the finish line.

Too often, we fund conservation like it’s a product. But what we’re really funding is access—the ability for communities to participate in the markets that are underpinned by their ecosystems.

That is what offtake agreements, environmental commodities, and investment case studies enable. That is what better sequencing unlocks. That is how we move from promising ideas to investable models, without trading off local ownership along the way.

Arushi Parashar is a finance and strategy professional with close to five years of experience, driven by a passion for shaping sustainable business strategies. With a strong foundation in capital markets and consulting, Arushi has developed a proven ability to analyze financial data and implement strategic solutions that create lasting value.

With climate finance facing renewed scrutiny and skepticism, I appreciated the opportunity to discuss the evolving landscape of capital mobilization for climate solutions at PEI’s Nexus 2025 last week. The discussion with Karine Khatcherian-Pisant from Power Sustainable and PEI’s Toby Mitchenall underscored both the challenges and opportunities in financing the transition to a sustainable economy.

The Bad News:

1. You can price in difficulty, but not uncertainty – Market volatility and policy unpredictability continue to deter investment in climate solutions.
   
2. M&A will remain on hold in this volatile environment – Unstable economic conditions and shifting investor sentiment are delaying major acquisitions.
   
3. Investment strategies (and pitches) must adapt – The era of cheap money is over, requiring businesses to refine their value propositions to attract capital.

The Good News:

1. Dry powder in private equity is aging – With funds between 3-5 years old needing deployment, capital remains available for high-quality, value-add companies. An overallocation in cleantech led to investor caution after recent setbacks, combined with increasing investor scrutiny in general. A more selective investment approach is emerging, with capital allocation focused on scalable and commercially viable projects in the real economy.
   
2. Private credit is forging ahead – Long-term, patient capital is stepping up, providing liquidity in both liquid and less liquid markets.
   
3. GPs are exploring alternative deal structures – Investors are adapting to market volatility and liquidity constraints by developing creative financing mechanisms to mitigate emerging risks.
   
4. Large LPs are diversifying exposure – LPs overallocated from the frothy PE market are now writing smaller checks to diversify commitments, creating opportunities for the kind of smaller, capital-intensive deals that are essential for scaling climate solutions.
   
5. New capital sources are expanding access – The expansion of private wealth participation in PE is reshaping the investment landscape, increasing accessibility for a wider range of investors, many of whom are dedicated to combatting climate change. As platforms democratize access, private wealth is expected to play a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of the private equity sector.
   
6. Employee ownership transitions are gaining traction – Aligned with PE’s broader efforts to democratize capital access and tap into new sources of private wealth, GPs are actively exploring employee ownership models, which promotes wealth distribution by enabling employees to build equity and share in long-term financial success.

Climate Finance: Trends to Watch 

1. Infrastructure finance will play a crucial role in scaling climate tech, with offtake agreements, performance guarantees, and corporate investments becoming essential mechanisms for de-risking projects and securing long-term viability.
   
2. Insurtech offers specialized insurance products to transfer the risk of increasing frequency and severity of climate-related events, such as wildfires, floods, and hurricanes. New market entrants offer coverage to homes in areas prone to natural disasters using simulation software, insurance solutions using sensor technology to protect temperature-sensitive shipments, and microinsurance to smallholder farmers in emerging markets that leverages advanced data and AI models to keep premiums low.
   
3. Innovation in reinsurance such as catastrophe bonds, weather derivatives, and parametric insurance leverages capital markets to distribute climate risks beyond traditional insurers. These risk transfer instruments offer institutional investors the opportunity to earn competitive returns that are largely uncorrelated with traditional financial markets, providing portfolio diversification while absorbing climate-related risks.

Despite current headwinds, private capital is adapting to new market conditions, and investors continue to seek innovative pathways to fund climate solutions. By refining investment strategies and integrating financial innovations, the climate finance sector can unlock the capital required to drive transformational change and future-proof the global economy. 

Susan McGeachie is CEO of the Global Climate Finance Accelerator, which convenes partnerships across business, finance, government and academia on strategies, policies, procedures, and tools to finance the deployment of technically viable climate solutions. 

In this new year it’s hard to ignore the weight the world carries. In the global landscape, environmental crises that exacerbate ongoing economic challenges and geopolitical tensions feel overwhelming. These realities didn’t pause for fireworks or countdowns. They reminded us of the work ahead.

On a deeply personal level, our loss of a young life that was so full of promise and potential casts a shadow over the hope a new year is meant to inspire. On November 1^st, Isobel Fanaki, my late, beloved cousin’s daughter who I had the privilege of calling my goddaughter, died suddenly while teaching abroad in Japan. Only twenty-five, Isobel’s death is a sharp reminder of dreams and opportunities that can go unfulfilled. 

The glorious flower arrangements at Isobel’s funeral reflected her strength and beauty, but it was one in particular that really caught our attention. By far the most unassuming, it was a symbol for Isobel’s undergraduate thesis, crafted by her former colleagues at the High Park Nature Centre. 

Isobel was a Renaissance thinker like her grandfather, an atmospheric physicist who loved to paint and play his many different musical instruments, including piano and guitar. His PhD thesis, The Study of Heat Flow in The Lower Troposphere by Laboratory Simulation, led him into the early days of climate change research with the Canadian federal government. 

Isobel was also an accomplished artist in addition to her focus on environmental science and ecology. For her biology thesis, she studied the link between the unusual population spike in uncommon mason bees and the abundance of non-native snail shells in Hamilton and parts of Niagara. She and her research colleagues discovered that the shells provide optimal nurseries for the bees’ offspring, allowing them to thrive as the broader population of wild native bees, including the honeybee, remains under threat. The success of these very effective pollinators supports the overall pollination needs of our food system by increasing the quality and quantity of the harvest.

Amid the enthusiastic rush into revitalized biodiversity markets, Isobel’s unassuming discovery is a quiet reminder that substantive outcomes require effort. Appropriately valuing and commercializing nature-based economic enablers demands the steady work and rapid adoption of under-funded yet urgently needed research and observation. 

In her book Medicine Wheel for the Planet, Dr. Jennifer Grenz shares the moment in her ecological restoration career that made her realize she couldn’t keep working solely with a Western science worldview of seeing the world in one way instead of in relation with everything else. Canada’s recent integration of Indigenous knowledge and experiential, land-based learning enabled ecologists to recognize that the invasive European grove snails were benign, eating only dead plants, and therefore should be left alone. Because they were left alone, Isobel and her colleagues were able to further study them and thus identify their usefulness to the Canadian ecosystem.

Isobel’s careful research must be balanced with urgent action. While acting without robust data risks perpetuating inefficiencies and inequities, delaying efforts to refine valuation models risks irreparable damage to critical ecosystems. Proposed solutions include taking immediate steps to protect and restore ecosystems based on current knowledge while investing in research to refine future valuations. Creating the innovative market systems that will help achieve Canada’s 2030 Nature Strategy and biodiversity net gain goals will require a more rapid alignment of science, policy, and finance.

The regret for this lost life is immense, as is the determination to honour Isobel’s memory. 2025 is a year to remember the promise of those we’ve lost – in addition to Isobel there was the sad passing of the catalytic Niilo Edwards in December – by carrying their light forward. It will be a year of uncertainty, but it also offers the hope of progress.  Whether it’s through collective action, innovation, or simply showing up for one another, this is the year to lean into our challenges with courage and optimism – for those we’ve lost, for us, and for the world we strive to build.

Isobel’s mother Janet Fanaki and brother Sam Fanaki have created a memorial fund, which is being used to support the causes Isobel cared about most: Nature conservancy, education, and addressing food insecurity. Donations can be made here. 

Isobel Fanaki studied biology at McMaster University, where she became a Teaching Assistant and was honoured with publishing her final year thesis on the ‘Nesting of local mason bees in empty exotic snail shells’. In addition to lifeguard and swim instructor, Isobel held roles as an Educator at Ripley’s Aquarium and a Teacher with the High Park Nature Centre before moving to Hiroshima, Japan to become an Assistant Language Teacher.

COP29 concluded on November 24, 2024. Referred to as the “Finance COP”, its central focus was on adopting a new climate finance target. Read on to explore the global progress made in climate finance.

This COP started strong, with three major advancements in climate finance negotiations:

• The “Baku Finance Goal” (BFG): A new commitment to channel $1.3 trillion of climate finance to the developing world each year to help address the negative effects of climate change
• Full operationalization of Article 6: Implementing cross border cooperation to reduce the costs of achieving national GHG emission reduction targets by up to $250 billion per year
• Full operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund: Total pledged financial support now exceeds $730 million, with project financing to help the world’s most vulnerable countries respond to loss and damage starting in 2025

Breaking It Down: What Do These Developments Mean?

1. The Baku Finance Goal (BFG):

• The BFG contains a core target for developed countries to lead on mobilizing at least $300 billion annually for developing countries by 2035. 
  • As background, the previous climate finance pledge, made at COP15, committed to $100 billion annually by 2025. According to an OECD analysis, this goal was achieved for the first time in 2022.

  

• Additionally, Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) announced the estimation of $170 billion climate finance annually by 2030. This includes $120 billion for low- and middle-income countries and $50 billion for high-income countries. In addition, each group has a target of mobilizing $65 billion annually from the private sector.
• Despite these efforts, gaps remain between the trillion-level goals and billion-level commitments. The COP Presidencies will lead the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T” to make progress towards that aim in COP30 next year. Additionally, the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance report highlights pathways to bridge these gaps:

2. Article 6 Operationalization: 

• The Paris Agreement’s Article 6 allows countries to collaborate on achieving Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by establishing the framework for an international carbon credit trading marketplace.

  

  • To recap, Article 6.2 facilitates government-to-government carbon credit trading via Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs), and Article 6.4 establishes an UN-backed carbon-crediting program. COP29 also concluded negotiations on Article 6.8 to facilitate internation cooperation through non-market approaches such as capacity-building and technical support.
  • The UN first approved Article 6.4 on day one of COP29, showing a strong signal to move forward and attract more capital. Trading in carbon credits could reduce the cost of implementing countries’ NDCs by more than half – up to $250 billion by 2030, while enabling the removal of 50% more emissions (about 5 gigatons of CO2 per year by 2030) at no additional cost. 
• Voluntary carbon markets may align with Article 6 standards, enhancing transparency and credibility while enabling  high-integrity carbon credits to trade under Article 6. This alignment leverages existing voluntary carbon market infrastructure and supports countries and the private sector in transitioning to Article 6 markets.
• Article 6 is far from perfect at this stage. Negotiations are ongoing, with the deadline to transition Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) from the legacy Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to Article 6.4 set for 2028. Updates to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are expected in early 2025.
• While the details will continue to evolve, the uncertainty impeding action has ended. Article 6 now represents an important and tangible tool for scaling up climate finance in developing countries.

3. The Loss and Damage Fund:

• The Loss and Damage Fund is a climate finance mechanism designed to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.  It addresses losses and damages caused by climate-induced events such as extreme weather and sea-level rise. 

• Established at COP27, the fund saw $700 million pledged at COP28 and now exceeds $730 million following COP29.
• COP29 formalized critical operational measures, including the appointment of Ibrahima Cheikh Diong as Executive Director and an agreement between the fund’s board and the World Bank. Financing projects are set to commence in 2025.

What Is Canada’s Role in Climate Finance?

• Canada announced  the launch of GAIA during COP29: a US$1.48 billion blended finance platform supporting high-impact climate projects in up to 25 emerging markets and developing economies.

• 70% of the platform will support adaptation projects and 25% will invest in small island developing states and least developed countries.
• GAIA, co-founded by FinDev Canada, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), and the Green Climate Fund in 2023, exemplifies innovative financing. Structured to accelerate the availability and accessibility of long-term loans for climate projects, GAIA aims to demonstrate how a blended finance structure that combines commercial, concessional, and grant capital can catalyze private finance at scale to support projects aligned with the Paris Agreement.
• In 2021, Canada doubled its international climate finance commitment from $2.65 billion (2015-2021) to $5.3 billion (2021-2026), including 40% grant and 60% unconditional repayable contributions (akin to concessional loans). 

As COP29 concludes, the progress achieved sets a strong foundation for climate finance, although significant gaps remain. The Global Climate Finance Accelerator addresses these challenges by offering innovative and affordable capital solutions through customized collaboration between partners in business, finance, government, and academia to more effectively mobilize resources. 

Learn more about our work in global climate finance by visiting our Ocean Love project site. Ocean Love is pioneering sustainable and equitable growth in the blue economy by investing directly in the untapped carbon sequestration and biodiversity projection potential of local coastal communities in the Caribbean and East Africa.

Hao Tian is an independent advisor on blended finance solutions for the Global Climate Finance Accelerator. She has nearly a decade of experience in finance and sustainability across global banks and the World Bank Group. As a seasoned leader in finance and sustainability, Hao connects the dots between capital markets, VC, and the public sector across developed and developing markets by exploring collaborative pathways design and innovative blended finance solutions. Hao holds a Master of Finance degree and a Graduate Diploma in Social Responsibility and Sustainability from the University of Toronto, and a Bachelor of Economics degree from the Central University of Finance and Economics. She is a Certified Financial Risk Manager and owns IFRS (ISSB) FSA Credential.

Partnership was an underlying theme in every discussion last week on how to advance climate solutions and sustainable development goals. In his opening remarks, PRI CEO David Atkin emphasized one of the organization’s core principles: Cultivating collaboration among key stakeholders, including investor signatories, policymakers, and academics.

At the Sustainable Finance Policy Conference on October 8, the PRI introduced updates to its Policy Toolkit on sustainable finance policy reforms. The event, which convened policymakers, regulators, and investors, explored reforms that support sustainability goals while maintaining competitiveness and economic resilience. Discussions also focused on how to navigate political cycles to ensure long-term support for responsible investment initiatives.

Speakers from all regions – North America, Europe, Africa – advocated for a “whole of government” approach, emphasizing the need for comprehensive coordination across various government departments, agencies, and levels. Coordination ensures that all facets of policy, from environmental regulation to financial oversight, are aligned to address systemic challenges such as climate change. In resource-based economies, from Canada to South Africa, targets along the transition trajectory must include human rights; not just to address job joss, but also to crowd people into new industries.

Speakers in all regions also noted the need to work together in addressing what have become human rights trade-offs in the path to net-zero, primarily land acquisition for renewables. Speakers acknowledged that this remains a steep learning curve that must be solved through collaboration between the Global North and South alongside governments and the private sector.

Back on the ground following PRI, speakers from the electricity sector at the Smart Growth Symposium talked about the historic undertaking of doubling the electricity grid by 2050. They called for more strategic collaborations between universities, industry, and government with better linkages between ivory towers and the shop floor. 

The room took a moment to celebrate an initiative to emulate. The University of Toronto’s long-standing reputation as a global leader in AI research acted as a foundation for bringing together researchers, government entities, and private sector partners to create the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in 2017. U of T’s expertise in AI, particularly through faculty members such as Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, provided the academic credibility and leadership that helped position Toronto as a significant hub for AI innovation globally.

On the energy transition, the university recently announced funding to make its Grid Modernization and Testing Centre, a Climate Positive Energy initiative, a reality. Industry facing, this test centre will help address a market capacity gap related to technology testing and real time simulation of various grid models. 

The Global Climate Finance Accelerator is delighted to collaborate with Climate Positive Energy and Rotman School of Management on interdisciplinary research to investigate and deploy new financing strategies and tools to accelerate the energy transition.

The Global Climate Finance Accelerator convenes partnerships across business, finance, and government on strategies, policies, procedures, and tools to finance the deployment of technically viable climate solutions.

On October 9, 2024, the Government of Canada announced the advancement of the “Made-in-Canada Sustainable Investment Guidelines,” which included provisions for categorizing investments based on their contribution to the net-zero transition. It could take up to three years, however, to finalize discussions on incentives to support the development of green projects, hindering progress on incentive structures that are crucial for attracting investments into green infrastructure and projects.

The good news is that many organizations are (more quietly) soldiering on in the face of regulatory uncertainty and political backlash. As noted in an April 2024 issue of Time Magazine, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon “know that clean technologies are where the biggest growth opportunities remain.” 

Dimon is placing his bets: To directly impact the transition to a low-carbon economy and provide investment opportunities related to climate change, conservation and biodiversity, JPM Asset Management acquired Campbell Global, a forest management and timberland investing company. The acquisition gives the firm a strategic entry point into the global carbon markets, as well as investment opportunities in climate change, biodiversity, and conservation. To hedge carbon pricing risk, the firm built its own internal management strategy rather than relying on government backstops.

Interesting opportunities in the global middle market were also widely noted at PRI this year. These businesses, historically overlooked by large institutional investors, present unique investment opportunities due to their agility and potential for rapid adoption of sustainability-related technologies and initiatives. Sustainable investors can drive significant impact in the mid-market by funding companies that are ready to invest in climate-positive solutions but lack access to capital. The sector’s flexibility makes it an ideal testing ground for innovative financing mechanisms for the deployment of technically viable, but underutilized, climate solutions. 

Some of the best examples of Action came from the deep dive into the real economy at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce + Climate Positive Energy Smart Growth Symposium. Culminating with the wrap of PRI, the Symposium dug into the specific barriers companies face in decarbonizing their operations. Many of these obstacles aren’t financial. For Uber, it’s overcoming “car-based culture”, which they’re tackling through behavioural science research in Canadian and US cities. Green uber selections, which are pennies extra per person, create a significant incentive for drivers. For Purolator, it’s access to electricity to charge their e-bikes for last mile delivery in urban areas. Surprisingly, electricity access in the parking lots housing e-bike containers don’t all have access to power. In addition to advocating with utilities, Purolator is piloting alternative sources of on-site power generation.

The Symposium left this Call to Action with its attendees: “Prioritize trying things. Some will succeed, some will fail. Persevere through the hiccups.”

Check this space tomorrow for more of what we heard on the need for partnerships and collaborative action in solving these tough challenges.

The Global Climate Finance Accelerator convenes partnerships across business, finance, and government on strategies, policies, procedures, and tools to finance the deployment of technically viable climate solutions.

Although the future of capital markets will look vastly different from the past, many systems remain anchored in backward-looking frameworks. While ESG and sustainability continue to evolve, we understand which factors are material to investment decisions through the ISSB standards and regional taxonomies. The focus must now shift to addressing organizational barriers—societal constructs that hinder progress. How do we create the flexibility needed to overcome these obstacles and align capital with socially inclusive, net-zero goals? 

First, by leaning toward curiosity, not fear. There’s political theater at play, especially around anti-trust accusations and climate-cartel fears, but there’s little legal basis according to Faegre Drinker’s Tiffany R. Reeves. Most of it is noise that critics are using to stoke a different agenda. Fear-based decisions, however, can stifle progress. The net-zero transition is a massive disruption unlike anything we’ve ever seen. That does create risks, but also tremendous opportunities.

Second, by tackling legacy systems. PRI Chair Conor Kehoe provides the example of tracking an issuer’s stock price for 18 months after a change in capex allocation, essentially penalizing investments in the transition. It’s not just about diversifying asset classes and geographies, says CalSTRS’ Kirsty Jenkinson. It’s also about making lots of small bets so capital can find its winners because we can’t tell yet who the winners are going to be. To help enable these bets, regulatory bodies must create safe harbours so companies feel comfortable disclosing scenario analysis. Finally, positive lobbying (for climate and other sustainability-related outcomes) is still rare. Leaders who may genuinely want to advance climate solutions are expressing their views quietly says Climate and Nature Solutions CEO Catherine McKenna. This reticence makes it difficult for government to action their feedback compared to louder, more public views. We need an enabling policy environment to level the playing field.

Third, by framing the political rhetoric around ESG in the appropriate investment context. Pension funds have overwhelmingly long term time horizons; tune out the noise and stick to strategy. For example, Wellington Management’s Wendy Comwell believes the US Inflation Reduction Act, with its focus on job creation in waning industrial areas and tax credits that work for nuclear as much as they do for wind, is a difficult bill to repeal irrespective of election outcome.

Tune in tomorrow for more of what we heard in the Call to Action.

The Global Climate Finance Accelerator convenes partnerships across business, finance, and government on strategies, policies, procedures, and tools to finance the deployment of technically viable climate solutions.