Finance

Western Balkan Green Navigator works with governments, the private sector, financial institutions and partners to set standards for green banking, expand the range of financial instruments and channel global capital flows to opportunities in emerging markets.

We see green financing as a tool to increase level of financial flows (from banking, micro-credit, insurance and investment) from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors to sustainable development priorities. A key part of this is to better manage environmental and social risks, take up opportunities that bring both a decent rate of return and environmental benefit and deliver greater accountability.

We are devoted to changes in regulatory frameworks, harmonization of public financial incentives, increases in green financing from different sectors, increases in investment in clean and green technologies, financing for sustainable natural resource-based green economies and climate smart blue economy and increase use of green bonds.

The main areas for the current work on green financing are:

• Supporting public sector on creating enabling environment
• Promoting public-private partnerships on financing mechanisms such as green bonds
• Capacity building of community enterprises on micro-credit and grants

SME and Corporate

Western Balkan Green Navigator is working with clients in manufacturing to help them decarbonize, through circular economy interventions, use of renewable energy, and other innovations. We will increasingly work to decarbonize heavy industries like steel, chemicals, and cement where the lion's share of greenhouse gas emissions is found.

Calculating your corporate carbon footprint (CCF) is often the starting point when it comes to taking climate action as a business. It provides you with an overview of your company's greenhouse gas emissions, where carbon hotspots lie within your business and what targets you can set to reduce your climate impact.

We are here to help you calculate and understand how you can take more ambitious climate measures.

We measure Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions across your business in compliance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol). These can be defined as follows:

• Scope 1 are direct emissions you produce as a business (e.g. your company vehicles)
• Scope 2 are indirect emissions you produce (e.g. your building's electricity usage)
• Scope 3 covers a wide range of indirect emissions along your entire value chain, including raw materials, logistics, business travel by the team and how your employees commute to work. This category often accounts for a large chunk of your overall corporate carbon footprint.

Once we've finalized data collection together, all of the activity data you've inputted (e.g. kilometers were driven in a company car) are translated into carbon emission equivalents. The result is a report tailored to you as a business with a breakdown of your corporate footprint, where your hotspots are and what your carbon footprint means.

As a result, you'll know your baseline and where you stand, and we can further help you to set carbon reduction targets and develop a roadmap to Net-Zero.

Energy

Western Balkans Green Navigator is working to create private sector opportunities in wind, solar, hydropower and other forms of renewable energy. We are also consulting on transmission, distribution, and energy efficiency and exploration of promising innovations in this field.

Reducing carbon emissions, preventing further environmental harm, and creating jobs are just some of the opportunities provided by investing in green energy. And by buying green energy, you are helping bring that future closer. Every day the sun provides the earth with more than enough energy to power the entire planet, but there's a problem. The current technologies we have in place are not efficient enough to convert enough of it into electricity, and for many, it's more cost-effective to use other traditional sources. Going green means greater funding to solar, wind, and other renewable energy projects, creating technologies to better harness the renewable sources around us and make them more affordable and accessible to everyone.

Furthermore, to achieve the emissions reductions pledged by governments as part of the Paris Climate Agreement, a huge shift in energy systems will be required. Public finance plays a critical role in leveraging low-carbon and climate-resilient investment in energy, but this transformational change will require large-scale private sector engagement.

Energy consumption for electricity, steam, heating, and cooling is often responsible for a large part of a company's carbon emissions. Switching to energy from renewable sources is a key measure for companies to significantly reduce their Scope 2 emissions and thus their carbon footprint.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, renewables could supply four-fifths of the world's electricity by 2050, massively cutting carbon emissions and helping to mitigate climate change. The private sector is offered by the bulk of renewable energy investments globally, as renewable energy assets can provide a long-term, stable, inflation-linked revenue stream that suits the risk-return profile of institutional investors, as well as helping to fulfill their social and environmental mandates, and we are here to help Western Balkan private sector to seize the opportunity.

Agriculture, Food, Water and Land

Recognizing the importance of climate-smart agriculture, Western Balkans Green Navigator is working with private sector clients to help improve productivity, and reduce inputs and post-harvest losses - which account for a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions. Importantly, we are also working to expand private sector solutions to protect biodiversity and ecosystems, and promote adaptation.

Climate-smart agriculture as an integrated approach for agriculture, food, water and land management addresses the interlinked challenges of food security and accelerating climate change and aims to simultaneously achieve three outcomes:

1. Increased productivity: Produce more and better food to improve nutrition security and boost incomes,

2. Enhanced resilience: Reduce vulnerability to drought, pests, diseases and other climate-related risks and shocks; and improve capacity to adapt and grow in the face of longer-term stresses like shortened seasons and erratic weather patterns.

3. Reduced emissions: Pursue lower emissions for each calorie or kilo of food produced, avoid deforestation from agriculture and identify ways to absorb carbon out of the atmosphere.

Furthermore, the market value for sustainable agriculture products is predicted to rise in the coming years and the market growth is matched by an upward trend in sustainable agriculture investment, which has grown 32.5% annually since 2013. There are considerable green investment opportunities across the sector, from farmland and sustainable forestry to smart agriculture and improving yields for smallholders.

By developing structures to facilitate international investments in sustainable agricultural practices among smallholders we are providing much needed catalyst effect for both investors and farmers to shift their practices.

Cities

Western Balkans Green Navigator is working closely with private companies and municipal clients to unlock investment opportunities from infrastructure to waste management and to make cities more liveable. We are also helping our clients to obtain green building certification standards, while supporting prioritization and acceleration of policy actions and investments that support the transition to a low-carbon urban growth pathway.

Many cities in our region are very vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with increased heat stress and extreme weather events. Solid waste management is another pressing issue, with recycling almost negligible compared to the EU average of 39 per cent and far short of the EU target of 50 per cent of municipal solid waste recycling by 2020.

To address these challenges we are offering a partnership for municipalities in assessing and prioritising environmental challenges, and developing an action plan to tackle these challenges through policy interventions and sustainable infrastructure investments. Western Balkans Green Navigator platform as a knowledge hub is also providing technical support to city administrators and local stakeholders to ensure that infrastructure identified investments and policy measures can be developed, implemented and monitored effectively.

Further, we are able to facilitate and stimulate public or private green investments in: water and wastewater, urban transport, district energy, energy efficiency in buildings, solid waste and other interventions that improve the city's adaptation and resilience to climate shocks.

Transport

The transport sector is responsible for nearly 25% of CO₂ emissions globally and a massive shift will be needed to transition to a low-carbon economy, including electrification of vehicles, low-carbon mass transport systems and greener replacements for aviation and shipping fuels.

Investments in transport infrastructure present a unique opportunity to meet both growing transport demand and development goals. Alongside the environmental benefits, sustainable transport can improve economic and social development by allowing people access to, among other things, jobs, markets, social interaction, and education.

According to the OECD, global investment needs for land transport infrastructure will reach USD 3 trillion by 2050. In an effort to address the infrastructure gap, governments are increasingly turning to the private sector to finance projects. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are an effective way of transferring life-cycle costs of infrastructure off public-sector budgets and simultaneously creating investable, long-term, inflation-proof assets for the private sector.

Western Balkans Green Navigator is scaling up its work with electric buses, rail links, and other climate-friendly solutions for public transit in cities. And we are investing in energy-efficient equipment and green buildings in ports, airports and shipping terminals, in addition to expanding our climate-related investments in e-logistics.