Cooling as a Service Seen as Opportunity for Investors

The Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy (BASE), leader of the Cooling as a Service Initiative (CaaS), has published a short, three-minute video interview between Thomas Motmans of BASE and Morgan Richmond, Climate Finance Analyst at Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) on the merits of the CaaS business model and the opportunity it offers to investors.

Watch the video

A key initiative of CPI, which Richmond works on, is the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance – also known as “The Lab.”  It comprises a network of over 60 expert institutions and investors from government, the private sector, philanthropy, and development finance, which identifies, develops, and launches innovative finance instruments that can drive investment to climate action and sustainable development. 

In 2019, The Lab endorsed cooling as a service as one of the most innovative financial instruments to accelerate investments into climate change solutions. “The Lab evaluates ideas on four key criteria: innovation, actionability, financial sustainability and catalytic potential,” explained Richmond in the interview. “Cooling as a Service fits all four and is particularly strong in catalytic potential.”

In the video, Richmond talks about the significance of being endorsed by The Lab and the opportunity for investors to get involved in CaaS. She also spoke on the potential for CaaS to mitigate climate change. “Part of what makes cooling as a service so exciting is the significant potential it holds both in mitigation and adaptation,” Richmond said.  

“The analysis we did in partnership with BASE during The Lab process indicated that the cooling-as-a-service model and financial incentives can meaningfully expand the market for efficient cooling in developing countries,” said Richmond in the interview. “We are really pleased that CaaS is implemented with cooling providers now that keep food and medicine cool under warming conditions – which is more important now than ever.”

In five years, The Lab has helped launch 41 solutions that collectively have mobilized nearly US$2 billion (€1.68 billion) in sustainable investment. 

Each year, The Lab holds an open call for ideas for financial instruments that can unlock investment to tackle some of the most difficult climate and sustainable development challenges. Over the course of an annual cycle, selected ideas receive guidance and support from high-level leaders from both the public and private sectors, who contribute expertise, political capital, and financial capital to the instruments. Selected ideas also benefit from robust analysis, stress-testing, and development by CPI.