Climate Group

The challenge

Subnational governments in developing and emerging economies are often underserved, under recognised and under supported in their fight against climate change. The Future Fund directly addresses this challenge by providing the necessary and often transformative financial assistance to subnational governments. This funding aims to address key barriers that prevent subnational governments in developing and emerging economies from fully realising their potential to address climate change.

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The solution

Established in 2017, the Future Fund empowers communities in climate-vulnerable areas through capacity-building projects, peer learning exchanges, and travel assistance to key climate events. The initiative enables states and regions to receive equitable access to global resources, thereby empowering them to accelerate the shift towards a zero-emission world. The Bentley Environmental Foundation supported three projects through the Future Fund:

Argentina: Creating the first air quality monitoring network in the province of Tucumán

This project focussed on creating the first air quality monitoring network in the province of Tucumán, measuring and generating a baseline of data, and creating public policies based on scientific evidence to effectively control the sources of emissions of air pollutants in the region.

Brazil: Digital community empowerment in the region of Pernambuco

This project focussed on the region of Pernambuco to develop an easily accessible digital platform that could serve as a tool to support and encourage local climate action, generate public data and, along with other state initiatives, increase transparency, engagement, technical capacity and municipal governance.

South Africa: Off-grid lighting for offices

This project targeted one local municipality office park as a pilot project designed to inform policy makers of the evidence and methodology to grid connected solar powered lighting within community office facilities.

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The impact

The success of these three projects lies in their ability to encourage changes in local policy, as well as multi-level governance collaboration, and the development of solutions that can be replicated in other regions.

Our partnership (2023/24) has:

Argentina

- Implemented the first hybrid monitoring network in the Province of Tucumán, which led to a study of atmospheric pollution and an analysis of the presence of fine particles in the air.

- Informed the development of public policies based on scientific evidence to effectively control sources of air pollutant emissions.

- Set up an open access platform that allows anyone to continuously and remotely monitor the data collected by the modules. The platform is available here: https://breathe2change.org/

Brazil

- Created a digital platform for local climate action, data generation, transparency, and engagement in Pernambuco.

- Engaged with 115 out of 185 local municipalities in Pernambuco, representing 62% of the total local governments in the region who actively participated in the project.

- Allowed the region to have a better understanding of the current policies and regulations when it comes to climate change in the different municipalities.

South Africa

- Successfully installed solar PV panels on one of the municipality buildings in the iLembe District in South Africa.

- Provided electricity for lighting and the charging of equipment such as laptops and computers through the 36-kilowatt solar backup system.The project hopes to replicate the installation of the solar panels to other municipal buildings.

- Successfully trained and created job opportunities for the local youth, contributing to South Africa’s green job market. Coming from the local community, the youths will then be able to maintain the solar panels after installation and provide support during the project’s operational phase.

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