Gold Standard, experts in climate and development, are pleased to announce four new collaborations that will help climate finance deliver a greater impact towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as unlock new channels of finance for climate and development activities.
The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg is supporting the Gold Standard by providing long-term purchase agreements for Gold Standard projects that align with their priorities. The partnership also aims to mobilise new channels of public and private finance by developing “Gold Standard 3.0” — a first-of-its-kind framework to quantify and verify the multiple sustainable development outcomes of climate and development projects.
With international climate finance funds from the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, Gold Standard will develop specific methodologies to quantify the gender equality (SDG #5) impacts of climate protection projects. These include providing women with equal rights to economic resources and paid employment and enabling equal opportunities for girls at school to help lift families out of poverty – a key focus for the Luxembourg activities.
“As a government entity we must ensure that every dollar of our funding does as much as it can,” states Carole Dieschbourg, the Environment Minister of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. “Our partnership with Gold Standard not only allows us to maximise the impact of our own funding, but also to set the foundation for many other organisations — both private and public — to make real, tangible contributions to climate security and the SDGs.”
BIX Capital, World Bank and Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves have also committed to Gold Standard 3.0, helping to develop, launch and promote its uptake. Specifically, BIX Capital will endeavor to provide its impact based pre-finance to the Gold Standard 3.0 pilot projects that deliver clean cooking technologies around the world. It will also support market development for funding the broad set of SDG outcomes delivered from Gold Standard 3.0 activities, and help in the development of a new IT system that will simplify the complex monitoring and reporting processes to facilitate investors’ needs.
The World Bank, through its Asia Sustainable and Alternative Energy Program (ASTAE) and with support from the Government of Australia, has been instrumental in quantifying development impacts of clean cooking. In this context, it is financing a new Gold Standard methodology to determine health benefits (SDG #3) resulting from interventions that reduce harmful emissions from household cooking. The approach uses Averted Disability Adjusted Life Years (ADALYs) as the impact metric. The World Bank aims to facilitate the first ADALY pilot projects and is providing advice on how to leverage potential additional financing for these projects.
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves collaborated with Gold Standard to develop the first methodology for quantifying Black Carbon, and is also supporting the health methodology by providing access to key research and experts, helping to develop the clean cookstove impact indicators, and supporting various results-based financing initiatives such as the Clean Cooking Loan Fund managed by Nexus Carbon for Development.
Jeroen Blüm from BIX Capital states, “We are excited to help make Gold Standard 3.0 a powerful tool to be used in the monetisation of impacts in international markets that are as of yet untapped.”
“Access to modern and cleaner cooking solutions can help countries improve maternal and child heath, fight climate change and realize significant gender benefits, all toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Bank’s collaboration with Gold Standard aims to demonstrate these links in order to mobilize additional investment,” said Charles Feinstein, Acting Senior Director of the World Bank’s Energy and Extractives Global Practice.
“Gold Standard 3.0 is an innovative next step towards unlocking results-based financing for the multitude of development outcomes that clean cookstoves deliver. We are happy to be working with Gold Standard to launch this framework and encourage its use in the market,” comments Peter George, Director, Enterprise Development and Investment at the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.
“Both the public and private sector need to increase their levels of ambition if we have any hope in meeting the goals set by the Climate Agreement and the SDGs,” said Marion Verles, CEO of Gold Standard. “By partnering with pioneering governments, such as the Government of Luxembourg, and organisations like the BIX Capital, World Bank and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, we are able to develop a unique platform that will drive finance towards a more equitable and sustainable future.”
For further information or to arrange an interview please contact:
Claire Willers, Marketing & Communications Manager, Gold Standard
Email: claire.willers@goldstandard.org
Tel: +41 78 947 74 94
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