Photo by Will Parson/Chesapeake Bay Program
Communities across the country are facing the biggest financing challenge in generations: the need to upgrade failing infrastructure systems, while preparing communities to be more resilient to the increasing impacts of climate change. The significant and widespread need for investment in our nation’s civic infrastructure is estimated to cost $5 trillion per year by 2020 with an additional $0.7 trillion per year needed to make communities more resilient to climate change under a 2°C scenario.
However, this urgent need to repair or replace deteriorating civic infrastructure systems in ways that stems the impacts of climate change creates an opportunity to transform financing and investment systems to be more equitable, efficient, and sustainable in the long term.
Funded by the EPA Office of Water, the EFC hosted a series of stakeholder meetings with the goal of identifying the conditions necessary for incentivizing investment at scale in a more resilient and climate-friendly future.
The Resilience Financing Forum brings together a select group of financial, policy, and business leaders to explore how scaling resilient community infrastructure investment can de-risk projects, providing investors with new markets and high returns while allowing local leaders and citizens to reimagine their communities and develop housing and schools that are more equitable, transportation systems that are more sustainable, and an energy and water infrastructure that is more resilient.
These ongoing discussions examine what is necessary to coalesce and develop new financing mechanisms, strategies, and products designed to grow investment in sustainable civic infrastructure.
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U.S. EPA Office of Water