Research
Discover our catalytic capital and climate finance research, case studies, white papers, and reports.
Building Financial Backbones: Lessons from the Strategic Capital Facilitation Community
As catalytic investors, we aim to understand how different capital is flowing currently and use our resources strategically to fill capital gaps with the goal of meeting a given system's needs on the ground. Prime’s experience of designing and building innovative catalytic capital solutions and companion programming allows us to explore creative structures and instruments to match the financing need, be it catalytic venture capital, development capital, insurance for direct investment, or even innovating on how to best support existing fund managers.
Catalytic Capital in the Climate Litigation Finance Market
Prime Coalition engaged Planet Law Lab to better understand the role philanthropic capital could play in advancing climate litigation. We set out to explore what types of cases have been brought in the past decade, the challenges they’ve faced, and how they’ve been funded.
Prime Advocates for Philanthropy's Role in Boston's Retrofit Efforts
Prime Coalition was honored to join the Boston Green Ribbon Commission in providing advisory support for The Boston Foundation's latest climate report, Powering Up Together, which focuses on the urgent need to retrofit Boston’s small buildings to meet the city’s net-zero emissions goals.
Barriers and Levers for Catalytic Capital in India
The report "Regulatory Barriers and Levers for Deploying Foreign Catalytic Capital in Impact-Focused Enterprises, Funds, & Facilities in India" is a collaborative effort led by Desai & Associates in partnership with Prime Coalition, with support from The Lemelson Foundation. It explores pathways, both direct and indirect, for channeling US and European catalytic capital into Indian social enterprises.
Additionality in Theory and Practice
For over a decade, Prime has led the way in catalyzing climate solutions that can mitigate or remove gigaton-scale emissions. Our latest white paper, “Additionality in Theory and Practice,” explores this core value that has shaped our work since 2014.
Climate Adaptation Funding in Africa
As Prime's Impact Fellow for Spring 2023, Chidalu Onyenso led a research paper on the funding challenges and opportunities for climate adaptation efforts in Africa. The research builds upon Prime's ongoing capacity-building efforts to address critical climate adaptation goals.
Resources for FOAK Project Preparation & Development
A guide on non-financial resources for first-of-a-kind (FOAK) project preparation & development, featuring readiness checklists, accelerators, workshops, project databases, and more.
Catalyzing Development of First-of-a-Kind Climate Projects
Prime Coalition's 2022 report highlighted the scaling issues climate startups face, especially in obtaining infrastructure finance. It pointed out the lack of capital to commercialize climate technologies, including development capital for pre-construction activities. In 2023, Trellis Climate examined this capital gap further, deploying philanthropic catalytic capital as a solution. This note summarizes the insights from Trellis' work.
Meeting the Moment: 2023-2033 Strategic Vision
Meeting the Moment: Prime Coalition’s 2023-2033 Strategic Vision
Pre-Investment Considerations: Diving Deeper into Assessing Future Greenhouse Gas Impact
Project Frame released the latest methodology guidance for assessing forward-looking emissions impact.
Barriers to the Timely Deployment of Climate Infrastructure
To understand what exactly is needed for climate technologies to move beyond their hatchling stages into large-scale deployment, Prime Coalition, Schmidt Futures, and Blue Haven Initiative came together to launch a research project at Prime: Barriers to the Timely Deployment of Climate Infrastructure.
CRANE 2021 User Report
This report captures data and insights from interactions with users since CRANE’s release in April 2020.