Atlanta, Baltimore announce EIB projects
Quantified Ventures will provide advisory services in partnership with the Rockefeller and Chesapeake Bay Foundations.
Big news! On March 26, we announced two new cities we'll be working with to set up Environmental Impact Bonds (EIBs) to finance green infrastructure and create greener neighborhoods: Atlanta and Baltimore.
Atlanta
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced this morning at the 17th Annual Parks & Greenspace Conference that the city's Department of Watershed Management will use EIBs to finance green infrastructure projects which will improve the resilience of an area that has been devastated by flooding in recent years. The Rockefeller Foundation is working with Quantified Ventures to help cities get started with EIBs. Through a partnership with municipal bond broker-deal Neighborly, the city will become the first-ever municipality to issue publicly offered EIBs, allowing citizens to become investors in their own city. Read the full press release here.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Baltimore
From a green infrastructure site in the Harlem Park neighborhood of Baltimore, Department of Public Works Director Rudy Chow (at podium in photo below) announced that EIB financing will help Baltimore fund 90 special landscaping projects in more than three dozen neighborhoods. The built-in accountability of the EIB was attractive to the city government. Initial funding for this project, which is being coordinated through the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Quantified Ventures, was made possible through an anonymous donor that was matched in part by a grant from the Kresge Foundation. If successful, this approach could be applied throughout the Chesapeake region to meet water pollution goals, and also to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods and communities. Read the full press release here.
Department of Public Works Director Rudy Chow at podium.
Media Coverage of These Announcements
Bond Buyer: Atlanta strengthens its resilience and fights flooding
Inside Philanthropy: A New Way to Finance Green City Projects, With a Boost From Foundations
Impact Alpha: Atlanta and Baltimore going green with ‘environmental impact bonds’
Rockefeller Foundation's Blog: Atlanta's Seeing Green
Baltimore Sun: Baltimore to use new form of financing for green infrastructure projects to fight water pollution
Bay Journal: Baltimore trying new tack to pay for costly stormwater project
Urban Institute Blog: Can pay for success help save the Chesapeake Bay?
WBAL11: City, Chesapeake Foundation team up to cut pollution using green spaces
The Water Report: Water and Resilience Projects: The Future of Finance