The goal of this project was to reestablish more natural flows and improve water quality and function for Great Lakes tributaries by developing methods to access new capital for sustainable stormwater solutions. The team explored how to place and manage distributed storm water solutions to provide maximum value for the local utility and local water resources, and they created a prototype, first-of-its-kind business model framework to manage such a system that would attract capital providers and expand the pool of financing for wet weather solutions.

This team’s work reached a wide audience of private equity and venture capital companies, municipalities, utilities, land developers, academics and technology providers, and the team was able to attract interest, resources and people to them.  In May, 2015 the Fund made an award for this team to demonstrate a new approach to financing and optimizing the performance of distributed green infrastructure by executing first-ever green infrastructure public-private partnership agreements (P3s) in several Great Lakes cities.