IFC Climate Upstream Workshops, Brazil, Ethiopia, Indonesia

The problem

IFC wanted to identify Upstream initiatives that would create new markets for investments that addressed climate change. IFC hired Castalia to run a series of ideation workshops and identify large-scale Upstream Investment opportunities.

How we helped

In collaboration with IFC, we identified three priority countries: Indonesia, Brazil, and Ethiopia. We analyzed climate vulnerabilities and climate mitigation potential across multiple sectors in each country to identify promising investment areas. We then interviewed business and finance leaders in these countries to understand investment drivers and barriers in each investment area.

We identified and developed two final Upstream initiatives; i) developing sustainable and reliable power supplies (such as through solar PV + batteries) for Ethiopian industrial parks using public-private-partnerships (PPPs), and; ii) greening Ethiopia’s coffee value chain and enhancing coffee production by investing in solar-drip irrigation and energy and water efficient processing facilities, leveraging sustainability certifications, commercial finance, and PPPs.

Other initiatives we identified throughout the project included i) working with local financial institutions to expand climate smart agriculture in Brazil; ii) programs to promote the use and increase the yields of existing Brazilian agricultural land through investing in climate-smart agricultural equipment such as efficient irrigators; iii) expanding Brazil’s green bond market to sectors beyond energy, such as water and sanitation, agriculture, and transport, and urban mobility; iv) low carbon and resilient water utilities in Indonesia; and v) electric vehicle paratransit and ride hailing in Indonesia.

Impact

We designed and facilitated two ideation workshops to identify the most promising Upstream climate initiatives and provided a clear plan for IFC to take these initiatives forward. These initiatives, and others they inspire, are critical actions IFC is taking to increase its climate investments.