C40 Cities, a worldwide network of major cities’ mayors working to tackle the climate crisis and halve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030, has unpacked a global port sustainability-linked loan (SLL) initiative.
The endeavor, announced on November 4 at a summit, is supported by the International Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The partnership reportedly formalizes a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between C40 and the IFC in September 2024.
The partnership is to focus on unlocking “massive investments” for environmentally friendly port infrastructure development projects with the overarching goal of speeding up maritime decarbonization. Per officials from C40 Cities, the initiative will set up “the first global framework tailored to deploy SLL for port decarbonization projects” around the world.
“Ports are gateways of international trade, and this global framework sets a new precedent, sending clear signals to the market and accelerating the pace and scale of climate finance for critical investments in zero-emission port infrastructure,” C40 Cities Managing Director of Climate Finance, Knowledge, and Partnerships Andrea Fernández highlighted.
As elaborated, the collaboration will target $1 billion in green maritime infrastructure investment within three years, delivering market guidance, capacity-building programs and direct access to finance for port authorities, especially in the Global South, where financing barriers have impeded the deployment of eco-friendly infrastructure.
In doing so, the SLL will help tackle a $200 billion sustainability-linked financing gap for infrastructure in the maritime sector, which has arisen largely due to technical, financial, and regulatory barriers facing port authorities, C40 has said.
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The project breakdown
As informed, the C40-IFC-IAPH partnership is to directly tackle the climate finance gap via:
As noted, the partnership will endeavoe to start with the regional workshops and capacity-building programme in 2026.
As a result, it is expected that the envisaged impact could push C40’s efforts to:
“The Global Port Sustainability-Linked Loan initiative marks an important step forward for further collaboration between ports, loan providers, and regulators. These land-based investments can fund long-term infrastructure and support offtake agreements for low and zero-carbon shipping fuels and liquid bulk transport,” IAPH Managing Director Patrick Verhoeven commented.
“This initiative complements IAPH’s work on the Clean Energy Marine Hubs (CEM HUBS) initiative, which aims to import, export, bunker, and where feasible, produce clean energy sources and zero and near-zero emission fuels,” Verhoeven added.
To remind, last year, after having commissioned Maritime & Transport Business Solutions (MTBS) to conduct a study on port climate adaptation and decarbonization investment needs of developing nations, the IAPH submitted submitted the findings of this research to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), seeking to emphasize the extent of the necessary investments.
Specifically, the study had estimated that the aggregate total investment needs for ports in developing nations lay between $55 and $83 billion.
More recently, namely in September 2025, the organization reiterated that the adoption of the IMO’s Net Zero Framework (NZF) could play a ‘significant’ role in this aspect.
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