Macquarie Group plans to develop 20GW of new renewable energy projects over the next five years through its Green Investment Group (GIG).
Around a fifth of the projects are expected to be in non-OECD emerging markets where climate finance flows have historically been weaker, Macquarie said.
It added that many of these projects are expected to be backed by power purchase agreements arranged by GIG with corporate clients.
The move follows Macquarie raising $A1bn (€614m) of share capital for investment through an institutional placement in August.
As part of the Climate Finance Leadership Initiative (CFLI), of which Macquarie is a member, the bank will also work to support emerging market countries to create conditions conducive to greater private investment, including in new partnerships with public finance bodies.
GIG is working with the UN Green Climate Fund to support the government of Mongolia in developing its own green bank, the Mongolian Green Finance Corporation.
GIG is also exploring opportunities to extend this green bank advisory offering to other countries.
Macquarie is also accredited by the UN Green Climate Fund to deploy concessional finance into climate mitigation and adaptation projects in emerging markets.
The CFLI was established in January 2019 by Michael Bloomberg, the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Climate Action, bringing together the chief executives of Allianz, Axa, Enel, HSBC, Goldman Sachs and Macquarie with the CIO of Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund to consider how to mobilize and scale private capital for climate solutions.
CFLI members have made a commitment to deploy $US20bn of emerging market climate finance by 2025, and to work more closely with publicly funded development finance institutions.
Macquarie Group chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake (pictured, right) said: “I’m delighted that our Macquarie teams have been able to contribute to these important United Nations initiatives on climate mitigation and adaptation.
“Over the last decade we have played a leading role in facilitating the shift towards renewables, with a particular focus on trying to address the various challenges that remain to full transition, including the need for a stronger pipeline of projects and integrating these with energy grids.
“We are increasingly broadening our focus by seeking new solutions to emissions reduction across agriculture, waste and real estate and working to ensure our infrastructure investments are more climate resilient.”
Meanwhile, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets announced that it will introduce carbon and energy reporting for its fund portfolio companies.
The move will enable it to “make better investment and asset management decisions and, over time, set future targets for the businesses within each fund portfolio to achieve a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.”
GIG has also launced initiative to increase the availability of standardised, climate-related data in partnership with BloombergNEF.
GIG’s Carbon Score methodology will be combined with BNEF’s renewable energy project data to build a tool to assess the green impact of over 40,000 wind and solar assets globally, 60% of consented projects.
Macquarie also announced that it will become a member of RE100, a global corporate leadership initiative bringing together businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity and will source all of the energy supplying its premises and data centres from clean power sources by 2025.