THEME - SUSTAINABLE MARKETS Indian market Unchartedareas Integrated approach Somak Ghosh - Rl is raising its sustainability profile in India Daan Dijk - environmental markets are a commercial proposition India is one emerging economy where RI is raising its sustainability profile. With India being the second fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, there is an urgent need for exploring sustainable alternatives to development. The environmental products and services market is expected to be worth around USD 14 billion by 2005. Rabo India recently launched a specialized product category focusing on sustainability and social innovation within its Infrastructure Project Advisory team. This team is involved in projects and Public-Private Partnerships relaring to renewable energy, waste management, the water sector and air pollution. Somak Ghosh, head of the Infrastructure Project Advisory team, fills in some background: 'Development Financial Institutions (DFIs) have always been around in India, hut in the last ten years they've shifted their focus towards commercial banking. Rabo India has moved to fill this vacuum by providing financial solutions to projects in un- charted areas. By this I mean projects which qualify for the "sustainable" label and typically find it difficult to achieve financial closure. For instance because there are no finan- cially strong sponsors setting up these projects, or because the technology is new and untested in India, although proven elsewhere. We recognized a business opportunity when we started receiving many proposals for commer- eially viable projects using non-conventional technology. Many of these were intrinsically viable but needed structur- ing to make them commercially bankable.' Rabo India is working with a number of Small to Medium Fntcrpriscs (SMEs) in renewable energy projects to convert municipal solid waste into power or effluents from the sugar industry or biomass (agriwaste) into organic fertilizers. These projects help to solve waste disposal problems and to reduce green house gases. The members of the Rabo India Infrastructure Project Ad visory team all have engineering backgrounds and a mix of equities, project financing and corporate advisory experience. This combination of technical and banking know-how allows the Rabo India team to offer an integrated approach. 'We are able to offer our clients an understanding of both the technology and capital markets,' confirms Ghosh. 'Other organizations are limited to providing finance, and usually only get involved in projects when the Engineering, Procurement and Gonstruction (EPG) contracts are already negotiated and the sponsors are looking for finance. We are 8 I The Word I

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