Creating business cases for ecosystem regeneration
The Weather Makers has the objective to develop ecosystem regeneration projects to balance water cycles and provide social economic benefits for those living in and around the project’s areas. By bringing together knowledge, skills, and networks to conduct and facilitate projects using holistic engineering, nature-based solutions and regenerative management tools (software) they work on the restoration of the biosphere of our planet.
Finance gamechangers
Triodos Regenerative Money Centre (TRMC) prioritizes natural and social return. TRMC lends, invests and donates money with an innovative and impact-first approach.
Quote TRMC: “Our goal is to finance gamechangers that fulfil a catalytic role in regenerating, transforming and benefiting society and the planet. The Weather Makers is a gamechanger when it comes to nature-based solutions. They have the potential to not only help restore the planet through innovative projects, but also show the engineering industry that working with nature is the right way forward.”
With the TRMC loan The Weather Makers now have the finances available to scale up their organization and activities and independently develop the know-how, skills and software tools needed to make their services available for a broader range of developers and contractors.
Regreening the Sinai and Henriettewaard
An impactful project is The Weather Makers’ plan to regreen the Sinai Peninsula, that connects Egypt to Asia. A greener and cooler Sinai can bring more moisture to the region and can positively influence the larger weather systems which cause extreme weather around the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Restoring the water cycle in this area will have a big impact on earth in rebalancing our climate, reversing desertification of the Mediterranean, providing water and food security to the local people and improve livelihood and prosperity of people.
Last November a Cooperation Agreement was signed between the Suez Canal Authority and DEME Group, a strategic partner of The Weather Makers for the project to regreen the Sinai Peninsula.
In ‘s Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, The Weather Makers and Triodos Regenerative Money Centre form part of a consortium to redevelop the Henriettewaard into a river nature park as part of the Green Delta Program. The central guiding principle of the Henriëttewaard nature park is the transformation of the current agricultural land use into a functional and dynamic natural landscape. The Weather Makers take the lead in determining the added values of the area in terms of water safety, water quality, carbon sequestration and to setup a financial model for the development. The design supports the different cycles by introducing key ecological processes through landscape diversity and biodiversity.
From Triodos’ perspective this is an important step towards developing new financial instruments which can support nature-based solutions.