Environmental Impact Bond to Fund Atlanta Watershed Projects

Atlanta wants to clean up the Proctor Creek watershed, and it has released a $14 million environmental impact bond for a series of green infrastructure projects, writes Jared Brey:

Environmental impact bonds (EIBs), like social impact bonds, are a type of financing that provides different levels of return for investors based on how well the projects funded by the bond perform. If a green infrastructure intervention is more effective than expected, investors get a greater return; if less successful, the return is lower.

EIBs are useful financing mechanisms for projects that are innovative but also considered risky and that might be harder to fund through a traditional bond. The Atlanta EIB will fund six projects, including installation of stormwater planters, creek and habitat restoration, and development of bioretention and wetland areas.

The firm Quantified Ventures helped Atlanta with the EIB, and it also worked with DC Water on the country’s first EIB, launched in 2016. Brey reports that investors in Atlanta include both firms committed to the environmental outcomes and larger, more traditional investment firms.