Canadian Impact Infrastructure Exchange – Pilot

In collaboration with the the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation (3ci), Impact Infrastructure LLC and Purpose Capital, IISD has set up the Canadian Impact Infrastructure Exchange (CIIX) is an information exchange that will bring together investors, including Canada's largest pension plans, and infrastructure investment opportunities that feature positive social and environmental impacts for Canadian communities. 

CIIX is designed to help stimulate investment in impact infrastructure with high ESG standards that will help overcome Canada's current infrastructure deficit. It does so by acting as a medium between private capital and Canada’s infrastructure requirements, bringing ESG information to the market based on a life-cycle approach to infrastructure investment. It will feature infrastructure opportunities in Canada that provide both sound financial opportunities for investors and maximum positive environmental and social impacts for Canadian communities. CIIX will also act as an aggregator for smaller-impact infrastructure projects, bringing them to a scale attractive to large institutional investors, while assisting smaller communities in accessing these markets with bundled and structured opportunities.

The pilot will analyze three real-world water infrastructure projects (water supply/stormwater management/wastewater) in Ontario and will perform a comprehensive sustainability analysis of the proposed infrastructure plan (or design, depending on project stage), ensuring high ESG standards. It will bundle the six small projects into an investment-ready opportunity. It will test this approach to creating high ESG standards in an infrastructure portfolio for responsible investors. This pilot would, among other benefits, develop the data collection process and desired output metrics for analyzing infrastructure projects that could potentially be included in the CIIX.