Investment opportunities in climate resilience using the Private Sector Opportunity Index (PrivateOI)

SLR Climate Resilience Scientist Pamela Green recently led the publication “Mapping a Sustainable Water Future: Private Sector Opportunities for Global Water Security and Resilience” in the Elsevier journal, Global Environmental Change (Volume 88, September 2024.) In this article, her team introduced a pioneering framework that combines spatially explicit water security needs with the regional capacity to support and maintain a positive business environment to identify where private sector investments can most effectively address water security challenges.

Private Sector Opportunity Index components

1. Water Threats

Water threats refer to the challenges and potential negative impacts that affect communities related to water availability, quality and management, and climate change impacts. These threats can include:

• Flooding events due to severe storms, changing climate impacts, and land use changes
• Water scarcity due to water overuse and climate change-driven droughts
• Water pollution from urbanization, wastewater, industrial, and agricultural impacts
• Lacking or falling water and sanitation infrastructure
• Degradation of ecosystems and disruption of natural flow impacting freshwater systems

2. Enabling environment supporting business activities and investments

Pamela Green and her team define an ‘enabling environment’ as a nation’s capacity to support and maintain a positive business environment through societal and governance structures such as water-positive policies and regulations, R&D investments, technology innovation, technology adoption, and adequate infrastructure. Nations with higher-ranking enabling environments are more likely to attract capital investments and will be better equipped to support private sector water-related investments and business activities.

3. Human beneficiaries

Human beneficiaries are the local and downstream people who can benefit from private sector investments in products, services, and interventions to mitigate water threats impacting their communities.

Together, the water threats, enabling environment, and coincident human beneficiaries create the Private Sector Opportunity Index (PrivateOI), a data stream capable of mapping the global geography of targets for private sector interventions that would have the most immediate positive impact. With this data, private sector interventions can be strategically focused on providing support via the deployment of capital, delivery of technology and products for water savings/water quality improvement and providing services including water sustainability consulting and engineering services.

Investment opportunities in the US: Enabling environments

The PrivateOI Index, as published in the study, provides a global perspective on water investment opportunities. However, in the United States, these opportunities can be tailored to regional, state, and local levels by utilizing specific societal and governance structures unique to each area.

Legislation such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act allow the federal government to fund critical infrastructure upgrades, including flood resilience, water reuse, wastewater management, and water storage, and support climate-resilience community planning. By identifying municipalities that leverage these funding opportunities and mapping regions with high water threats alongside beneficiary populations, targeted solutions can be developed to address specific water challenges.

As the U.S. undertakes efforts to upgrade its aging infrastructure, consulting and engineering services will play a significant role in supporting these initiatives. Investments in climate resilience in the US may include:

• Flood early warning and disaster detection systems
• Climate vulnerability assessments and risk indexing
• Modernizing infrastructure, such as bridges, roadways, and water engineering systems, to endure water risk events for at-risk coastal and river communities
• Adapting innovative technology into water quality monitoring solutions for pollution control and prevention

How SLR can help

SLR is a partner able to support climate resilience planning and modern infrastructure projects, large and small with our deep bench of experts in engineering, climate resilience, and water infrastructure. Utilizing the PrivateOI Index, we can identify clear and preventable water risks that provide the highest value for investment. We are capable of developing and implementing climate resilience vulnerability systems to help communities understand what area will be the most critically impacted by extreme weather.

For more information, learn about our Water Risk and Resilience solutions (a Climate Resiliency and Net Zero Related Capability) and get in touch with our experts today.