Every year, cities spend $50,000 to $500,000 producing climate action plans. Consultants are paid. PDFs are designed. Press releases go out. And then — almost always — the plan sits on a shelf. Not because the science is wrong, but because nobody attached capital to it.
13,558 cities have signed the Global Covenant of Mayors. Nearly all have climate action plans. The vast majority are unfunded.
the three beliefs keeping your plan on the shelf
Before we get to the playbook, let's name the things that keep cities stuck.
belief 1: "we just need a better grant writer."
Federal climate grants — FEMA BRIC, EPA Climate Pollution Reduction, HUD CDBG-DR — are real money. But they're competitive, cyclical, and reactive. FEMA BRIC receives applications from nearly every state; award rates hover around 20-30%. The average timeline from application to disbursement is 18-24 months. And most grants fund gray infrastructure — concrete, pipes, seawalls — not the natural systems that prevent the damage in the first place.
Grants are a supplement, not a strategy. If your climate action plan depends on winning grants to execute, you don't have a financing plan. You have a wish list.
belief 2: "our city can't do innovative finance."
Portland, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Medellín, and New Orleans are all C40 cities actively investing in nature-based infrastructure through mechanisms that didn't exist five years ago. These aren't financial capitals. They're mid-size cities with practical officials who realized that traditional budget cycles can't match 30-year climate horizons.
If your city has a stormwater utility fee, you're already doing innovative finance. The question is whether you can extend that logic to the natural systems that make stormwater management work.
belief 3: "the council won't approve something this new."
Frame it differently. This isn't experimental technology. It's a funding mechanism that does three things your council already wants: reduces flood, heat, and fire risk; generates returns that offset budget pressure; and creates verifiable outcomes for federal compliance reporting.
When you present it as risk reduction with built-in accountability — not as innovation for its own sake — the conversation changes.
the playbook: five steps from unfunded plan to resilience portfolio
step 1: audit what your plan actually costs
Most climate action plans list priorities without price tags. The ones that do include costs rarely distinguish between capital expenses (build the bioswale) and ongoing operations (maintain it for 30 years).
Pull every action item from your climate action plan. For each one, estimate:
- Upfront capital cost
- Annual maintenance cost over a 30-year horizon
- Which natural systems the action depends on or protects
You'll likely find that 40-60% of your action items depend on natural infrastructure — tree canopy, wetlands, permeable surfaces, floodplains, riparian buffers — that your plan treats as background, not as funded assets.
step 2: map the natural assets that serve multiple line items
This is where the leverage appears. A single urban wetland system might serve your stormwater management goal, your urban heat reduction target, your biodiversity commitment, AND your air quality standard. That wetland isn't a line item — it's infrastructure that solves four problems simultaneously.
Instead of funding four separate programs, fund the underlying asset that generates all four services. A restored wetland delivers stormwater retention, heat mitigation through evapotranspiration, habitat, and air filtration — perpetually, with minimal maintenance compared to gray alternatives.
"The cheapest infrastructure is the kind that solves multiple problems at once and doesn't need to be replaced every 30 years."
see how natural assets deliver multiple services →
step 3: identify who already pays — and who should want to
Your city isn't the only entity with skin in the game. Every natural asset has beneficiaries beyond the municipal budget:
| who benefits | how they benefit | what they'd fund |
|---|---|---|
| water utilities | lower treatment costs, source protection | watershed restoration, riparian buffers |
| property insurers | reduced flood and fire claims | floodplain restoration, fuel reduction |
| healthcare systems | fewer heat and respiratory admissions | urban canopy, green corridors |
| major employers | workforce stability, livable city | heat reduction, air quality |
| real estate | property values, livability premium | parks, green infrastructure, flood protection |
| state and federal agencies | compliance, resilience targets | matched funding for natural infrastructure |
This is the who-pays analysis — the step that transforms your climate action plan from a municipal expense into a shared investment. When a utility, two employers, and an insurer all benefit from the same watershed, the math changes from "we can't afford this" to "we can't afford not to split this."
see how cities are funding nature commitments →
step 4: structure the funding to match the time horizon
Climate risk operates on decades. Municipal budgets operate on years. This mismatch is why plans stay unfunded — not because of political will, but because the financial instruments don't fit.
Ensurance is a protocol designed for exactly this gap. It creates financial instruments that generate perpetual funding for natural assets through market participation rather than annual appropriations. In plain terms:
| traditional funding | ensurance funding |
|---|---|
| annual budget allocation | perpetual proceeds from market activity |
| dependent on political cycle | independent of election timeline |
| single-source (municipal) | multi-stakeholder (utilities, insurers, employers, investors) |
| funds gray infrastructure | funds the natural systems that make gray work |
| compliance reporting is manual | outcomes tracked and verifiable automatically |
The key shift: ensurance converts one-time spending into an ongoing investment. A city doesn't just fund a wetland — it creates an instrument tied to that wetland's measurable services, which multiple parties can invest in and benefit from over time.
step 5: start with one pilot, then build the portfolio
You don't need to transform your entire climate action plan overnight. Start with the natural asset that serves the most line items, has the most co-beneficiaries, and has the strongest data.
A good pilot looks like:
- One well-documented natural asset (watershed, urban forest, wetland system)
- Two or three co-funding partners beyond the municipality
- Measurable outcomes tied to your climate action plan targets
- A 12-month proof period before expanding
Cities that have piloted shared approaches to natural infrastructure — from stormwater credit trading in Philadelphia to watershed payments in Portland — have found that the first project unlocks the second. Once the council sees verified outcomes and shared costs, "innovative finance" becomes "how we do it now."
frequently asked questions
what does this cost to get started?
An initial assessment of your climate action plan's natural capital dependencies can be done in weeks, not months. The protocol itself has no licensing fees — it's built on open infrastructure. The primary cost is staff time to identify priority assets and potential co-funders.
does this replace our existing grant strategy?
No. It complements it. Federal grants can fund initial restoration or construction. Ensurance provides the perpetual maintenance and operations funding that grants almost never cover — which is exactly where most nature-based projects fail.
how do we report outcomes?
Every instrument in the protocol is tied to verifiable outcomes — measurable ecosystem services produced by specific natural assets. This creates an automated, transparent reporting trail that satisfies constituent transparency and federal compliance requirements, including those emerging under GCoM, C40, and climate disclosure frameworks.
what if our climate action plan doesn't mention natural capital?
Most don't — explicitly. But most plans include stormwater management, urban heat reduction, flood mitigation, air quality improvement, and habitat protection. These are all ecosystem services delivered by natural assets. You already have a natural capital plan. You just haven't funded it as one.
next steps
13,558 cities have made climate commitments. Yours is probably one of them. The plan isn't the problem. The capital structure underneath it is.
The playbook: audit your plan's real costs, map the natural assets that serve multiple goals, identify who else benefits, structure funding that matches the time horizon, and start with one pilot.
If you're a city official, utility director, or foundation program officer looking at an unfunded climate action plan, we can help you build the capital strategy underneath it.