Arsht-Rock announces the Cool Capital Stack: A $750 million investment pipeline to protect the world from extreme heat
Wed, Nov 9, 2022
Addressing the urgent climate crisis of extreme heat with an aggregation of projects and technologies to protect people and local economies
Sharm El-Sheikh, EGYPT — November 9, 2022 — Today the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock), with support from JPMorgan Chase, and Clean Cooling Collaborative (an initiative of ClimateWorks Foundation), and in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, and EYDAP (Greece’s largest regional water utility), announced the Cool Capital Stack: the first-ever investment pipeline dedicated to mobilizing investment in projects and technologies to protect people, communities, and local economies – particularly the world’s most vulnerable including women and girls – from climate-driven extreme heat. This project pipeline also serves to scale and accelerate desperately needed adaptation finance.
Arsht-Rock launches the Cool Capital Stack at COP
The Cool Capital Stack seeks to draw from “the full capital stack,” which includes philanthropy, concessional and blended finance, parametric insurance, and traditional debt and equity capital. The Cool Capital Stack’s pipeline of projects will include both passive (e.g. urban forests) and mechanical (e.g. clean air conditioning) cooling solutions and new technologies that increase capacity to adapt to the impacts of extreme heat. Investment opportunities include cool and green roofs, reflective surfaces, urban forests and greening, water infrastructure, and technologies and tools for cooling and protecting people from heat.
“In the face of more frequent and intense heat waves, increasing heat-related fatalities, economic losses, and melting infrastructure that are disproportionately impacting low-income communities, scaling investment in cooling is urgently needed,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, Senior Vice President and Director of Arsht-Rock. “Heat-related economic losses around the world are high and mounting. The Cool Capital Stack can cool communities and inspire a new asset class.”
In the face of more frequent and intense heat waves, increasing heat-related fatalities, economic losses, and melting infrastructure that are disproportionately impacting low-income communities, scaling investment in cooling is urgently needed. Heat-related economic losses around the world are high and mounting. The Cool Capital Stack can cool communities and inspire a new asset class.
On stage at COP27 (4:00 am EST/11:00 am EET), Arsht-Rock, alongside key private, public and civil society partners, discussed the many ways the Cool Capital Stack can meet the mounting need for cooling by unlocking and blending traditional debt and equity, concessional, risk-transfer, insurance, and philanthropic capital to address extreme heat and deliver returns to investors–and economic, social, public health, and other benefits to people and communities.
Featured speakers for The Cool Capital Stack: Investing in a world safe from extreme heat panel included:
- Kathy Baughman McLeod, Senior Vice President and Director, Arsht-Rock Resilience Center
- Ashvin Dayal, Senior Vice President, Power & Climate, The Rockefeller Foundation
- Chuka Umunna, Managing Director and Head of EMEA ESG, JPMorgan Chase
- Yvonne Denise Aki-Sawyerr, Mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone
- Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas, Mayor of Monterrey, Mexico
- Helen Mountford, President and CEO, ClimateWorks
- Francis Bouchard, Managing Director of Climate, Marsh McLennan
- Vivek Pathak, Director, Global Head, Climate Business, IFC
- Bijal Brahmbhatt, Director, Mahila Housing Trust
- Eleni Myrivili, Global Chief Heat Officer for U.N. Habitat, Senior Advisor, Arsht-Rock, Chief Heat Officer, Athens, Greece
- Felipe Calderon, Former President of Mexico, Arsht-Rock’s Global Ambassador for Heat Action
The Cool Capital Stack is linked in part to the economic analysis of heat impacts from 12 global cities recently completed by Arsht-Rock with Vivid Economics. Initial city partners include Athens, Freetown, Santiago, Monterrey, Melbourne, Miami-Dade, and Los Angeles, and will be followed by Buenos Aires, New Delhi, Dhaka, Bangkok, and London. As the team identifies investment opportunities and “deal-ready” cities, the portfolio will be expanded. City partners include developed and developing countries, but recognize strong investor interest and the urgent need to prioritize investment in the Global South.
About the Adrienne-Arsht Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center
The Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock) builds individual and community resilience in the face of climate impacts. We pledge to reach one billion people around the world with resilience solutions to climate change by 2030. For more information follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
