City authorities drive green investment boom to trillion dollar market
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City authorities in 151 cities are driving a green investment boom as they implement local climate commitments.
Nick Reece, the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Australia, and Claudio Castro, the Mayor of Renca, Chile, argue that city-level decisions on building renovations, public transport, and infrastructure are creating massive new markets for green products.
An analysis by C40 Cities and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy suggests that annual spending on these products could rise from $293 billion in 2025 to $2.78 trillion by 2050. This growth could place the urban green market among the world's five most valuable companies by market capitalisation. The mayors highlight how specific local projects create reliable pipelines for businesses.
In Melbourne, the city committed approximately $31 million in its 2025-2026 budget for parks and streetscape improvements while planning to electrify 11 municipal sites. In Renca, a reforestation effort involving $7.6 million in public and private investment planted more than 85,000 trees. This project is expected to provide ecosystem services worth about $8.9 million a year once the park matures around 2035.
Reece and Castro call for global finance and national policies to scale up supply to meet this rising local demand. They advocate for the private sector to view local governments as primary markets for growth rather than just regulators. The leaders suggest that the COP31 summit in Antalya, Türkiye, should focus on connecting national commitments with these city-level investment pipelines to turn local demand into a global investment boom.
