Exploration of a Potential Public Infrastructure Fund with Scalable Cities, a European Commission Initiative Focused on Sustainability

Scalable Cities is a European Commission-backed network of over 130 cities working together to make urban life cleaner, smarter, and more sustainable.

The program achieves this by helping cities to share notes with their peers on what has and hasn't worked in their own districts, in areas related to greener transport, energy-saving retrofits to buildings, and the use of new digital technologies.

Thanks to the clearer, real-world information from peers, cities are better prepared to pursue and scale projects that have proven to deliver real impact around Europe.

Several key insights arose from this work:

• The EU will not reach its carbon neutrality goals unless it massively scales its support for decarbonization efforts.

• The current investment framework in the EU for climate-related infrastructure is too disjointed, with frequent overlaps and gaps amongst the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, and member state agencies and funding institutions.

• The EU's regulatory framework, combined with the disjointed investment environment, has made it too difficult to scale cross-border solutions into pan-European asset classes that could benefit from major institutional and public investment.

Three Mast Group has been helping Scalable Cities to explore how a massive public investment fund focused on pan-European climate solutions might work. The work has entailed engaging with city administrations from around Europe, European Commission Directorates General, the EIB, and private organizations via calls, in-person meetings, and workshop events.

This work is ongoing.