Mobilising Green Finance to Develop Smart and Sustainable Cities
Delivered at the Singapore FinTech Festival, a dynamic panel discussion delved into innovative strategies for decarbonising urban environments, emphasising the intersection of sustainability, data digitization, and green finance.
Key Highlights
1. Strategies for Decarbonising Urban Environments
Joanna Yeo of Arukah Capital:
The Power of Data:
- Reliable, high-frequency data is critical for ensuring transparency and accuracy in carbon credit markets and sustainability initiatives.
- Leveraging digital measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems can unlock access to green finance, reducing administrative costs by up to 90%.
- Automating green bond reporting processes can address inefficiencies and scale green financing.
- Example: HSBC’s study estimated that digitising green bond administration could bring down costs significantly, from $6.5 million to $700,000 for a 20-year green bond.
Urban Impact Solutions:
Transitioning waste-to-energy projects into urban contexts, such as using biochar in concrete and creating scalable solutions for agriculture and urban waste.
2. The Role of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)
Greg Mittman of HySights:
PPP as a Catalyst for Climate Innovation:- PPPs can make the uneconomic viable by pairing public capital with private discipline.
- Telecom serves as a blueprint for energy and urban decarbonisation projects, with similarities in infrastructure and network evolution (e.g., from centralised to distributed systems).
- Recasting public-private property rights to facilitate IoT infrastructure for sustainability.
- Example: Deploying sensors across public spaces to monitor emissions and urban activity while ensuring connectivity and power availability.
3. The Need for a Climate Innovation Playbook
City-Specific Challenges:
- Smaller cities often lack the expertise, capital, or resources to implement sustainable solutions effectively.
Proposed Solutions:
- Develop a climate innovation playbook—a step-by-step guide for cities to identify, fund, and implement sustainability projects.
- Harness data-driven insights to create scalable templates that can be adapted to different urban environments.
Discussion Themes
Sustainability and Green Finance:
- Combining data digitisation with green financing to streamline administrative costs and enable faster decision-making.
- Encouraging data sharing among stakeholders to improve transparency and compliance with sustainability goals.
Innovation in the Built Environment:
- Transitioning the construction industry to adopt biochar-based concrete and other low-carbon materials.
- Incorporating energy-efficient technologies to address operational carbon emissions, which account for 50% of emissions in urban buildings.
Sensors and IoT for Urban Decarbonisation:
- Leveraging IoT technologies for real-time monitoring of emissions and energy use.
- Deploying distributed networks and intelligent systems inspired by telecom's transformation into energy and climate systems.
Vision for Sustainable Cities
Decarbonising Urban Spaces:
- Collaboration is Key: PPPs provide a structured framework for cities to access public and private funding for green infrastructure.
- Harnessing Data: High-quality, verifiable data enables precise measurements, improved reporting, and scalability in sustainability projects.
- Develop modular, replicable frameworks that cities can adapt based on their unique needs and capacities.
- Focus on integrating innovation in finance, governance, and technology to create sustainable urban ecosystems.
Conclusion
This session underscored the transformative potential of green finance, data automation, and public-private partnerships in achieving sustainability goals. By leveraging insights from telecom and other industries, urban environments can pioneer scalable, impactful solutions for a greener future.
Speakers:
- Greg Mittman, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer, HySights
- Joanna Yeo, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Arukah Capital
Moderator:
- Prof. Shreekant Gupta, Executive Education Senior Fellow, LKY School of Public Policy