Calls Archives - Page 14 of 17

The Blue Natural Capital Financing Facility (BNCFF) supports the development of sound, investable projects that support coastal habitats and have clear ecosystem service benefits. BNCFF aims, in particular, at demonstrating the feasibility of tapping into the wealth of coastal ecosystems – ‘blue natural capital’ – to create appropriate risk-return profiles for funding providers and to protect and enhance the underlying habitat at the same time.

A key ecosystem service provided by coastal wetlands concerns the removal and long-term storage of CO2, a reason why these ecosystems – namely mangroves, seagrasses and marshlands – are also referred to as “blue carbon” ecosystems. Blue carbon project development presents the opportunity to avoid, reduce or remove CO2 from the atmosphere by conserving and restoring coastal wetlands, while generating income for local communities from the sale of carbon credits.

As terrestrial forest carbon projects have been developed for decades, investable blue carbon projects remain rare. This is despite the fact that blue carbon interventions – such as conservation of threatened mangrove habitats, rewetting of tidal peatlands and restoration of seagrass beds – generate a multitude of additional benefits to climate change mitigation. The protection of freshwater resources, the provision of nursery grounds for fish, and shoreline protection against storms and flooding are important ecosystem services that healthy coastal wetlands provide.

In order to kickstart blue carbon project initiatives to generate tradeable carbon credits or use other results-based finance schemes, BNCFF offers seed funding to pay for feasibility assessments or early project development*. Funding per project may not exceed 70,000 EUR and can be used for various pre-feasibility and feasibility studies to determine the blue carbon potentials, prepare blue carbon project design documents, set up monitoring and verification procedures and tools, non-permanence and leakage risk assessment, among others. The call targets projects in developing countries only. NGOs, SMEs, academia as well as government entities are eligible.

*Project developers requiring support for later stage project development can apply for funding from BNCFF year round by handing in this submission form.

Through this call for proposals the BNCFF aims to support about four promising blue carbon projects over the coming year.
Projects will be selected according to the following criteria:

Blue carbon generation potential and the ability to monetize the blue carbon;
Habitat conservation and/or restoration value across ecosystem services;
Clear and inclusive land tenure and participation arrangements;
Environmental, social and governance attributes (including gender aspects);
Experience of the applicant;
Role of the blue carbon income stream in the expected finance structure; and
Opportunities for developing additional income streams (beyond carbon).

There are no thresholds in terms of area size for this call. However, projects must demonstrate that they will likely generate sufficient cashflows to attract financing and maintaining operations for a longer time period (~10 years) based on a sustainable business model.

Download Project Submission Form

Deadline for submission is April 30th.
Responses to applicants by May 30th.
Only projects that respect the word counts will be considered for pre-selection. Pre-selected proposals will be vetted in dialogue with the applicants.
The BNCFF Facility Manager may request targeted follow-up information from any applicant.
The release of funding is subject to the BNCFF’s know-your-customer check.
All funding decisions are final.

MarTERA Call 2020 | 24 April 2020

25 March 2020/in Calls /by Communication team

MarTERA launched a joint call for transnational research and innovation projects in 2020. This call is initiated by ministries/funding organisations from 11 countries: Belarus, Belgium, France, Germany, Malta, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, South Africa and Turkey. The transnational call has a budget of about 13 Mio € for collaborative research and innovation projects in the following areas:

Priority Area 1: Environmentally friendly maritime technologies
Priority Area 2: Innovative concepts for ships and offshore structures
Priority Area 3: Automation, sensors, monitoring and observations
Priority Area 4: Advanced manufacturing and production
Priority Area 5: Safety and security

Applicants from the above mentioned countries are eligible for funding and applicants from other countries are eligible in case they finance their involvement from other sources. For further detailed information please download the MarTERA Call 2020 Announcement (see Call 2020 Documents box). The MarTERA Call 2020 is implemented as a two-step procedure (a pre-proposal and a full-proposal step). Step 1 deadline for the submission of pre-proposals is 24th April, 2020.

For preparation and submission of pre-proposals for the MarTERA Call 2020, an online submission tool is used. Please read carefully the Guidelines for Pre-Proposal Submission (see Call 2020 Documents box), which are decribing the process and required content of a pre-proposal.

We Value nature: Call for case studies | 3 April 2020

18 March 2020/in Calls /by Communication team

The call was published first by We Value Nature on its website (link removed/ page inactive).

Integration of natural capital in public and private sector decision making for climate resilience and biodiversity in collaboration with the We Value Nature campaign

We Value Nature is an EU Horizon 2020 three-year campaign that seeks to boost uptake of the use of natural thinking, natural capital accounting, nature-based solutions and green infrastructure by businesses across Europe to make valuing nature the new normal. These approaches can contribute substantially to a sustainable and resilient economy, which is crucial in the context of the current ecological and climate crisis where environmental risks continue to dominate the global business and economic agenda.

We Value Nature is currently carrying out together with Ecoacsa a pilot project to identify opportunities to strengthen collaboration between the public and private sector through assessing the options, benefits and best practices of protecting nature, enhancing the functions of ecosystems and restoring degraded land in a specific nature area in the Mediterranean area, Cabo de Gata-Níjar (Andalusia, Spain), by reinforcing the integration of natural capital in decision-making processes.

To identify different natural capital approaches that benefit local stakeholders from public and private sectors and society In order to achieve this, we are searching for case studies that demonstrate successful actions for valuation of natural capital, ecosystem restoration, nature conservation and the effective integration of ecosystem services approaches in decision-making. The case studies will be assessed and the most successful ones in terms of demonstrated leadership and results will be compiled into a publication of best practices to support interested public and private sector stakeholders to learn and replicate these actions. Case studies that could be eligible should come from ecotourism sector, eco-agriculture, and agroforestry.

Please submit your case study by email to jesuscarraco@ecoacsa.com by the 3rd of April 2020

Successful case studies to be profiled by We Value Nature will be notified before end of April 2020

The entire call is available here (link removed/ page inactive).