On October 14, the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) released Phase 1 Water Criteria for its Climate Bonds Standard, a type of green bonds standard that could be used to certify gray infrastructure projects. The Phase 1 Water Criteria covers engineered water infrastructure for the purposes of water collection, storage, treatment or distribution, flood protection or drought resilience. The criteria is broad in that water infrastructure assets across the world and in sectors outside the water utility community – such as agriculture, manufacturing and power generation – could also be certified under this criteria. Not eligible for certification under the criteria are water assets in the fossil fuel and nuclear sectors, because the Climate Bonds Standard and Certification Scheme does not support investments in these sectors.
The standard was developed by a consortium of organizations: Ceres, the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation, CDP (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project), and the World Resources Institute. Available online are a press release from Ceres and a column in Forbes, written by Ceres’ director. A Technical Working Group comprised of people with different kinds of water expertise from across academia, environmental and water sector NGOs and utilities also provided input to the standard.
An overview of the standard and certification scheme under the water criteria is described in AMWA’s newly released green bonds whitepaper. CBI also published an overview with frequently asked questions and a guidance document to assist bond issuers and verifiers with conducting assessments for adaptation, mitigation and resilience of projects to be financed by climate bonds. AMWA submitted an extensive set of comments on the draft standard. The final product is more concise and easier to follow. Within the next 12 months, CBI plans to release additional criteria (Phase II Water Criteria), which will cover green infrastructure.