Taxi Transition in Lima
Millions of people commute to Lima's city center, making it the third most congested city in the world after Mumbai and Bogota. 290,000 taxis are in operation, and with 20% more than 20 years old, they are highly inefficient in terms of fuel and CO2 emissions.
Acceso Crediticio, a portfolio company of responsAbility, finances natural gas vehicles (NGVs) that are far more environmentally sustainable than traditional combustion engines and have lower fuel costs, the latter due to Peru’s extensive natural gas resources. In 2019, Acceso launched a scrapping program to persuade drivers to trade in their old models. Acceso paid a “scrapping bond” of up to USD 2,000 to be used as a down payment towards the new NGV taxi. Most of the proceeds of the bond came from a combination of private-sector sources – insurance companies, private vehicle dealers and Acceso itself – all of whom stood to benefit from the eventual purchase of the new NGV taxi.
Our Technical Assistance Facility assessed the program's economic fundamentals, ensured its environmental sustainability, and developed the implementation plan. By renewing Lima’s obsolete vehicle fleet with cleaner alternatives, Acceso is contributing greatly to climate change mitigation.
Green Building Boom
“An entire New York City every 34 days for the next 40 years - that’s the pace at which the world is urbanizing,” according to UN Environment. By 2030 then, green building certifications must be the new normal, as green buildings create healthier environments, reduce operational costs, and increase asset value.
Benefits of certification include:
- the ability to measure buildings’ performance and collect data.
- the requirement that building-related products are certified, slowly affecting the larger value chain, including resource and waste management, materials, etc.
- lower operational costs, a higher resell value, healthier living environments and a lower environmental footprint than traditional buildings.
responsAbility has incorporated the IFC EDGE certification scheme into our Technical Assistance offering. This allows our Climate Fund’s Partner Institutions to assess the eligibility of their projects in the building and construction sector using the IFC EDGE standard. This standard means a building must be at least 20% more efficient compared to the country baseline in three categories: energy, water and embodied energy in materials.
Staying Cool in Record Heat
Demand for cooling will triple by 2050. With this in mind, we have partnered with the Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy (BASE) in order to promote Cooling as a Service (CaaS). This is a pay-per-service model for clean cooling systems, which eliminates upfront investment in clean cooling technology for customers who simply pay for the amount of air conditioning they use instead of buying and maintaining the equipment. This both incentivizes efficient energy consumption and drives technological advancement.
Urban Solar Everywhere
Cleaner, cheaper and more reliable energy is crucial when envisioning a sustainable future. So over the next 10 years, portfolio companies in our energy access fund will provide clean power to more than 150 million people, add 2,000 MW of clean energy generation capacity and reduce CO2 emissions by 6 m tonnes. One such portfolio company is Fourth Partner Energy, who seeks to balance India's energy security, affordability and sustainability. Founded in 2010, they have grown to become one of India's largest companies in the commercial and industrial (C&I) solar sector, having set up over 2000 installations across 23 states.
