Scott Minerd, Global Chief Investment Officer of Guggenheim Partners and Carter Roberts, the U.S. CEO of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) participated in a Fireside Chat conversation on January 27 in the Goal 17 Space.

Moderated by Julie Hyman of Yahoo Finance, Minerd and Roberts discussed how the partnership between Guggenheim and WWF is creating a framework by which more capital will flow to infrastructure projects deemed to be sustainable. In particular, a sustainable infrastructure project is one that provides for sustained social and economic growth in a way that protects – if not enhances – the environment. Such projects can range from bridges and roads to restoring wetlands and revitalizing forests.

However, as Minerd pointed out, if infrastructure projects are to secure private sector finance they must also generate a sufficient rate of return to allow the investors to meet their fiduciary responsibilities to their beneficiaries.

To that end, Guggenheim and WWF have teamed up to develop the “Sustainability Quotient” – a framework that assesses the financial, governance, environmental and social performance of infrastructure projects. If infrastructure projects meet those criteria, they will be able to provide a lasting benefit to society while delivering strong and stable returns to investors.

Immediately following the Fireside Chat, Jim Pass of Guggenheim, David McCauley of WWF and Daniel Wiener of Global Infrastructure Basel (GIB) led a panel discussion about the work being done to create transparent frameworks and models to create, build and manage sustainable infrastructure projects on a global scale

The panel agreed that the frameworks and models are vital to accelerating the development of sustainable infrastructure as an asset class. As highlighted by the paper by Stanford University’s Global Projects Center that was commissioned by Guggenheim and WWF, there are 13 such standards used to assess infrastructure projects. While the range of standards does, at times, prevent a consistent approach from being taken when evaluating infrastructure projects, it also is a reflection that there is not a “one size fits all” approach to such evaluations.

As the Stanford paper concluded, while there may be some consolidation in standards, infrastructure likely will remain a difficult asset class to commoditize, especially for sustainability evaluation and reporting. Therefore, there will not be a significant reduction in standards in the foreseeable future.

While many challenges exist in bringing more sustainable infrastructure projects to fruition, the asset class is growing. Moreover, cross-sector collaboration is facilitating the development of best practices, further allowing the development of sustainable infrastructure projects.

WWF and Guggenheim have committed to furthering their collaboration so as to build a community of interest to continue the research and identify practical applications for the research. The next phase of their work is to analyze specific projects or sites targeted for infrastructure investments with the goal of understanding the capacity of these tools to both predict and improve asset sustainability and performance.