The growing availability of government funding for resilience projects is expanding opportunities for many important and innovative sustainability initiatives in smaller communities to see the light of day. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) unlocks an unprecedented $47 billion for climate resilience and the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act will further amplify resilience investment.

That is, provided those local governments first know where to look and how to best present their case for those opportunities.

To push worthwhile projects from the drawing board to become shovel-ready, the American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP) recently published the Ready-to-Fund Resilience Toolkit. The toolkit describes how local government leaders and partners can design more fundable projects by pulling specific policy levers, seeking key partnerships, inverting power structures and rethinking and redesigning internal processes.

Geared for all levels of government practitioners working on climate resilience, this toolkit will help potential funding candidates operate within current finance and policy systems to better prepare themselves and their communities for climate resilience funding and finance.

Climate Finance Advisors (CFA), a prominent climate finance and sustainable investment consultancy acquired by WSP USA earlier this year, was part of the team that created the toolkit. Stacy Swann, WSP executive vice president and former CEO and founding partner of CFA, served on the Ready-to-Fund Resilience Expert Group.

“One of the challenges for state agencies and municipalities is to get their projects to a point where they are ready to successfully apply for funding,” said Lauren Geraghty, adaptation and resilience manager at WSP. “For many of them, climate resilience has quickly become a ‘top three’ priority and there is a large volume of funding available now. But accessing it can be challenging.”

The toolkit breaks down the funding, including federal sources, in a way that helps organize criteria as agencies prepare their project applications. CFA contributed to the U.S. Federal Resilience Funding Sources section of the toolkit, which outlines 27 relevant federal programs.

“Many subnational governments are in a different place for this, and many do not have a climate resilience agency, or a climate resilience officer, dedicated to seeking funding,” said Taryn Akiyama, climate finance project consultant at WSP. “This toolkit will help streamline efforts to develop shovel-ready projects for those who do not have these resources available.”

CFA also developed the U.S. Public Sources for Climate Resilience Investment (US-CRI) database, which today is helping WSP clients navigate a variety of federal programs to compare uses, sectors and geographies and determine the best fit for any given resilience project, plan or initiative.

The US-CRI database contains over 100 funding mechanisms from 20 federal agencies and departments. It is geared for U.S. state, local, tribal and territorial governments. Geraghty and Akiyama built and manage the database. The dynamic database has filtering and sorting capabilities, taking only seconds to input criteria and cull the 100 federal programs to, say, a dozen of greatest relevance.

“We develop ‘program snapshots’ for clients, which are easy-to-digest selections of federal programs that are tailored to client interests, resilience priorities and project needs,” Geraghty said. “This screening allows our clients to spend less time identifying relevant sources of funding and more time applying for them. These customized program snapshots are featured in the Ready-to-Fund Resilience Toolkit and the 2021 Governors’ Climate Resilience Playbook, among others.”

Even with the database available, it can be time consuming, costly and challenging for some state and local governments with limited human capital and financial resources to commit the time necessary to create projects and apply for the necessary funding.

WSP, which regularly tracks updates in federal climate funding and new funding opportunities, is providing clients with a number of services that help turn proposed projects into reality, including:

• identifying relevant federal funding opportunities for a given project,
• providing technical expertise such as conducting cost-benefit analyses, and
• supporting grant writing and grant applications.

“Given the recent ramp up of federal funding opportunities for climate adaptation and resilience, the time is ripe for these agencies and organizations to develop resilient projects that can withstand more frequent and severe climate impacts. WSP can serve as a one-stop shop for climate resilient investment and infrastructure—helping clients pinpoint specific funds, craft strong applications, and construct projects.” Akiyama said.

While the database provides valuable information and guidance, it requires periodic re-evaluation in order to ensure it is being applied using current standards and criteria. For instance, many new and continuing programs under the BIL are set to announce application criteria and timelines later this year.

“We are witnessing a golden opportunity for agencies that have not done this before, have not been successful on past attempts, or lack staff and resources to pursue innovative climate resilience projects and programs,” Akiyama said. “We can never be sure what will happen over the next few years, and funding streams can take time. So, acting sooner rather than later may be critical.”

Because of continuous changes in the way the funding is awarded, the database WSP developed is updated regularly, responding to changes and announcements to provide more timely guidance.

“Whenever big spending bills are passed and new resilience funding becomes available, WSP is able to keep our clients updated,” Geraghty said. “There is always the potential for unexpected changes to deadlines, award amounts, and grant requirements, so it is important to keep the information up to date.”

Often, project developers are not aware that they might qualify for funding from multiple sources. When this opportunity arrives, it lowers further the amount of community funding needed to complete a project’s budget. The key is to know where to look, and to be able to identify where such opportunities are possible.

“Diversity of funding sources is a big part of what can be accomplished, and it can start with this tool,” Akiyama said. “Many champions for these smaller projects may feel that they don’t have a shot at federal funding when going up against the resources of a large department of transportation or other large agencies. But that is not the case.”

“WSP has been helping with planning, with grant writing, and with the guidance necessary to help them identify all possibilities and give life and hope to these community-resilience projects,” Geraghty added.

UN Climate Change Conference (Nov. 6-18)

WSP is all in for the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP27) this year in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The firm’s delegation is working in close collaboration with the UN Climate Champions team and numerous partners, including the International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure, Resilience Rising, Resilience First, the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

WSP is helping shape the discourse and presenting on a wide range of topics — the future of funding the net-zero transition, realizing infrastructure’s resilience dividend, mainstreaming nature-based solutions and integrating green infrastructure into grey — and supporting the Resilience Breakthroughs implementation labs across the spectrum of impact systems: food & agriculture, water & nature, human settlements, oceans and infrastructure.

Learn more about how WSP is activating its engagement at COP27, hybrid events you can register to attend, and the distinct suite of capabilities that make WSP a leader in climate, resilience & sustainability: https://www.wsp.com/en-us/campaigns/cop27

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