GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

A call is be­ing made for in­vestors, com­pa­nies and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to take ad­van­tage of a new fi­nanc­ing av­enue that can chan­nel bil­lions of dol­lars in­to projects rang­ing from re­new­able en­er­gy and cli­mate-re­silient in­fra­struc­ture to hous­ing, health­care and ed­u­ca­tion.

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the T&T Stock Ex­change (TTSE), Eva Mitchell, is­sued the ap­peal yes­ter­day as the TTSE launched new guide­lines for the is­suance of Green, So­cial and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Plus (GSS+) bonds, de­scrib­ing the frame­work as an im­por­tant step in con­nect­ing de­vel­op­ment projects with pri­vate cap­i­tal.

Speak­ing at the launch which took place at the Hy­att Re­gency, Mitchell stressed that the suc­cess of the ini­tia­tive would not be judged by the pub­li­ca­tion of guide­lines alone, but by the in­vest­ments and trans­ac­tions that emerge from them.

“It will be mea­sured by the trans­ac­tions that fol­low,” she said, not­ing that the frame­work cre­ates an­oth­er av­enue through which cap­i­tal can sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of this coun­try.

Mitchell said sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment would be re­quired to fund re­new­able en­er­gy projects, cli­mate-re­silient in­fra­struc­ture, af­ford­able hous­ing, health­care, ed­u­ca­tion and trans­porta­tion up­grades.

“The re­al­i­ty is that the pub­lic purse can­not fi­nance all of it,” Mitchell said adding, “We there­fore have to be­come more de­lib­er­ate about mo­bil­is­ing pri­vate cap­i­tal along­side pub­lic and mul­ti­lat­er­al fund­ing.”

She ar­gued that the cap­i­tal mar­ket has a crit­i­cal role to play in bridg­ing that fi­nanc­ing gap, par­tic­u­lar­ly as sus­tain­able fi­nance con­tin­ues to gain trac­tion glob­al­ly. In­vestors, she not­ed, are in­creas­ing­ly eval­u­at­ing not on­ly fi­nan­cial re­turns but al­so the en­vi­ron­men­tal and so­cial im­pact of the projects they sup­port.

The TTSE CEO said this rep­re­sents an op­por­tu­ni­ty for T&T to con­nect projects re­quir­ing fi­nanc­ing with in­vestors seek­ing cred­i­ble in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, while al­so ex­pand­ing the range of in­stru­ments avail­able with­in the lo­cal cap­i­tal mar­ket.

She added that sus­tain­able fi­nance could even­tu­al­ly al­low a broad­er range of in­vestors, in­clud­ing or­di­nary cit­i­zens, to par­tic­i­pate di­rect­ly in fund­ing na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives.

Mitchell re­ject­ed the no­tion that sus­tain­able fi­nance is a for­eign con­cept to T&T, point­ing to sev­er­al ex­ist­ing ini­tia­tives that demon­strate the coun­try’s grow­ing fo­cus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

These in­clude the 100-megawatt Brechin Cas­tle so­lar project, which she de­scribed as the largest re­new­able en­er­gy project of its kind in the South­ern Caribbean, and the use of a so­cial bond by the T&T Mort­gage Bank to sup­port hous­ing ac­cess for women.

She al­so ref­er­enced the re­cent launch of na­tion­al net-ze­ro roadmaps for the waste and agri­cul­ture sec­tors, both of which iden­ti­fy projects re­quir­ing fu­ture fi­nanc­ing.

“What has been miss­ing is a clear­ly de­fined cap­i­tal-mar­ket path­way con­nect­ing those needs with cap­i­tal,” she said adding, “That is what we are be­gin­ning to build to­day.”

Mitchell em­pha­sised that cred­i­bil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy would be cen­tral to the frame­work’s suc­cess stat­ing that in­vestors must be able to un­der­stand how projects are se­lect­ed, how pro­ceeds are al­lo­cat­ed and what mea­sur­able out­comes are ul­ti­mate­ly achieved.

Stephen Thomas is the Di­rec­tor of Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions for the Caribbean re­gion at IDB agreed that the launch of the guide­lines rep­re­sent a piv­otal step to­wards mo­bil­is­ing pri­vate cap­i­tal to­wards projects that gen­er­ate mea­sur­able en­vi­ron­men­tal and so­cial ben­e­fits while de­vel­op­ing, while de­liv­er­ing at­trac­tive op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­vestors.

“The guide is in­tend­ed to help mar­ket par­tic­i­pants nav­i­gate in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices and frame­works for the is­suance of green so­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty linked is­suances and bond in­stru­ments, there­by sup­port­ing the con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ment of sus­tain­able fi­nance in our re­gion. Around the world sus­tain­able fi­nance is no longer the least seg­ment­ed mar­ket,” he ex­plained.

Thomas fur­ther echoed that in­vestors are in­creas­ing­ly ask­ing for op­por­tu­ni­ties that com­bine fi­nan­cial re­turns with pos­i­tive im­pact stat­ing for T&T this presents a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“The coun­try pos­sess­es a so­phis­ti­cat­ed fi­nan­cial sec­tor, strong in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty and sig­nif­i­cant po­ten­tial to ad­vance sus­tain­abil­i­ty ob­jec­tives across mul­ti­ple sec­tors. Whether sup­port­ing en­er­gy di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy, ini­tia­tives to ad­dress ex­treme weath­er events, af­ford­able hous­ing, sus­tain­able trans­port, wa­ter and waste­water in­fra­struc­ture, or ini­tia­tives that ex­pand op­por­tu­ni­ties for grow­ing and un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties, ac­cess to cap­i­tal can be a pow­er­ful cat­a­lyst for de­vel­op­ment,” he added.