The City Finance Lab (CFL), a platform designed to support climate finance innovation, has issued a call for ideas for ‘cutting edge’ urban solutions.
The CFL was launched last year as a partnership endeavour between EIT Climate-KIC, the EU’s knowledge and innovation community for climate issues, and sustainability financing body South Pole. In its first year the CFL provided advice and support to five projects designed to offer replicable, scalable climate finance innovation, delivering pilot schemes including renewable energy retrofits for social housing in the Netherlands; implementing sustainable urban planning strategies in Germany; and developing sustainable ‘smart’ office blocks in Sweden.
City Finance Lab Project Manager Teodora Virban said: “Now more than ever before, cities must be prepared to deal with the risks and impacts of climate change by moving to more sustainable, zero-carbon and resilient pathways. Through the City Finance Lab, we enable the deployment of city finance solutions in such a way that is joined up, scaled up, and adds up to actions and initiatives that keep us well within the 2˚C global warming threshold.”
The CFL’s call for proposals will be open to municipal finance practitioners including cities, urban networks, utility providers and financial institutions until 31 October. Applicants whose climate finance innovation initiatives are successful will receive technical and advisory expert support, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate their projects to partners and investors.
Hans-Peter Egler, Director of Public Affairs at South Pole, said: “The growing conscience of the climate emergency, illustrated by the recent declarations from cities such as Paris and Milan, as well as the increasing carbon emissions in urban centres, puts cities in a central role for driving global action to address climate change. The City Finance Lab is at the forefront of developing, scaling and replicating innovative financing solutions to accelerate the shift of much-needed capital in cities towards low-carbon and climate-resilient initiatives.”
