Climate Financing Request for Information

Deadline: Continuous

This Climate Financing Request for Information (“RFI”) provides opportunity for stakeholders to inform California’s strategy for climate lending in specific priority sectors. The California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (“IBank”), in collaboration with the State Treasurer’s Office (“STO”) and jointly serving as California’s “Green Bank”, anticipate receipt of federal funding to provide accessible, affordable financings for clean technology projects that benefit California’s communities by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening climate resilience, and mobilizing public and private capital to stimulate additional deployment of climate solutions.

IBank and the State Treasurer’s Office issues this RFI to gather feedback from stakeholders, including private capital partners, impact investors, developers, local governments community groups, philanthropies, and other market participants to:

1. Identify where specific financing gaps exist that are impeding capital formation at speed and scale, and specific solutions to maximize the impact of public resources to effectively meet the market’s needs.
2. Learn from established financing products that have been effectively deployed in the marketplace, inside and outside of California, that can be taken to scale using public resources.
3. Evaluate potential financing platform partnerships the state can leverage, to reach target market sectors – many of which require small-scale capital commitments that state lending entities may be challenged to directly effectuate.

About the RFI   

The Climate Financing RFI follows the deadline for applications to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Clean Investment Fund. The National Clean Investment Fund, created through the federal Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, will capitalize a series of federal green financing entities. These national green financing entities will then provide flexible capital to state green banks targeting specific sectors of the climate economy, creating new, permanent financing funds that can be continuously redeployed to meet the evolving needs of the market for climate solutions.

The RFI solicits input regarding the following priority project categories (“sectors”):

• Distributed Energy Generation and Storage.
• Net-Zero Emissions Buildings.
• Zero-Emissions Transportation.

These sectors are consistent with the requirements for funds allocated through the NCIF and are detailed in the RFI.

RFI Documents

• Climate Financing RFI

All relevant documents pertaining to this RFI will be available on this site. Interested parties are advised to check this website for updates, as any changes to the RFI process or documents will be posted on this site. 

Contact and Submission

Please direct all responses and questions to climatefinancingrfi@ibank.ca.gov.

The RFI is open to all interested stakeholders. IBank and STO encourage respondents to submit all responses in Word Document (.doc) or PDF (.pdf) format, not to exceed 15 pages.

​The RFI will remain open and responses will be evaluated periodically as received to ensure that all interested parties have an opportunity to provide input. The Request for Information was released in December 2023, with a priority deadline on February 9, 2024 to inform strategy for climate lending under the US EPA National Clean Investment Fund. Multiple submissions are welcomed, as market participants gain knowledge and develop concepts over time.