As concessional funders seek greater leverage amid shrinking development budgets, guarantees now account for roughly a third of all blended finance transactions . Yet, despite the growing trend, few climate-focused guarantees are reaching the ground. Why?

This blog explores how financial innovation—particularly blended finance—can support the implementation of the global plastics treaty. Drawing from real-world examples like seaweed-based plastic alternatives, it highlights the need for coordinated investment strategies to scale circular solutions and drive treaty goals.

Municipal solid waste in developing countries is often poorly managed resulting in high methane emissions and environmental harm. While carbon finance offers a promising tool to improve project viability by monetizing emission reductions, current mechanisms remain insufficient and carbon finance must be complemented by performance-based mechanisms and embedded within a supportive policy, regulatory, and institutional framework to address systemic inefficiencies and attract sustainable investment.

At Catalytic, we work across the investment continuum – from project development to fund incubation – to address these gaps.Waste management is a cross-cutting sector in our initiatives, often embedded in climate mitigation, urban resilience, and marine conservation strategies.

On International Day of Forests

Jiao Tang, Catalytic's COO, is a waste management finance expert. In our first “Humble Op-Ed”, she proposes a new way to finance waste management infrastructure in developing countries; using concessional capital to cover OPEX instead of CAPEX.