How green banks can accelerate climate finance

ESG Insider: A podcast from S&P Global

There’s a massive gap between the amount of investment needed to make the climate transition happen and what is occurring today. In this episode of ESG Insider, we explore the role that green banks can play in plugging that funding gap.

Green banks can differ in scope and approach but are generally created to leverage government funds to mobilize private investment in clean and resilient infrastructure on the local scale. They exist in many parts of the world, including Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Switzerland, the U.S. and the U.K.

In the episode, we’ll hear from Reed Hundt, co-founder, chairman and CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital, which has helped organize a number of green banks and is pressing the U.S. Congress to create a federal green bank. And we’ll look at how the first state-level green bank in the U.S. — the Connecticut Green Bank — has evolved since forming in 2011.

We talk with Connecticut Green Bank President and CEO Bryan Garcia, who tells us: “Our goal is to demonstrate to the ... capital markets that this is a safe area of investment, and we're willing to put our capital at risk in front of you to do that.”

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