“Climate adaptation and water investments have huge economic benefits, but it’s hard to translate that into financial revenue streams”, says International Water Envoy of the Netherlands Meike van Ginneken in this sixth and last episode of Waterproof. “You need ‘patient capital’. And that very quickly gets you to public finance. Governments have a very important role in this, in organizing climate adaptation.”

The happy story in this episode is Taprobane Seafood in Sri Lanka, which got a 15 million dollar loan from the FMO Dutch Entrepreneurial Bank, which has unorthodox investments as its mission. Udari Morawake is the sustainability officer at Taprobane, and proud of it: “Without healthy oceans, there is no seafood, so we focus on protecting marine ecosystems. And on the other hand, we have a responsibility to put food on the table for more people by providing work.”

I also spoke with Chief Economist at ABN Amro Sandra Phlippen about how to convince the financial world to invest in climate measures. She warns that some investors are withdrawing their capital from vulnerable regions with a high disaster risk, leaving the dirty assets to investors and banks who don’t have an interest in greening. “That is the worst outcome, that we are proud of having cleaned up our own balance sheets, and that the world is not slowing down on this temperature increase.”