Form cover
Page 1 of 3

JET Portfolios Retreat: Shaping the JET Investment Narrative

The Context: From Pledges  to Projects

South Africa’s Just Energy Transition (JET) has achieved critical milestones in defining investment priorities, mobilising international pledges, and establishing institutional capacity, governance, and coordination. As  we pivot toward large-scale JET implementation, we now need to focus on delivery that opens tangible green growth pathways for the economy.

The changed geopolitical landscape means that global climate finance is stretched far beyond the global need. To secure continued support, we must shift our engagement with global partners from progress reporting to strategic positioning. The original "pledge story" of COP26 is no longer enough; we now need an evidence-based "partnership story" that translates technical achievements into structured, investable propositions for diverse funders.

The Objective: Our immediate goal is to develop a unified master pitch deck and modular portfolio chapters that can be used for engagements with bilateral partners, philanthropies, and development finance institutions over the next 6 months, begining with London Climate Action Week (LCAW 20–28 June 2026). We need a narrative that acknowledges the complexity of South Africa’s JET work while confidently asking funders to deploy capital into our newly built project pipelines.

The Core Narrative: "The Scaffolding is in Place" Our working narrative is that South Africa's JET is "halfway there". The first half of the work—building the political architecture, institutional capacity, and investment pipelines—acted as the essential "scaffolding". Now, we need strategic partners to help us build the structures inside. This framing is honest, acknowledges the essential scaffolding costs already invested, and creates an urgent call to action for the second, half of the transition.

Why Your Leadership is Essential As Nobel Laureate Robert Shiller demonstrated, narratives don't just accompany financial expectations—they drive them. Crafting this story is an economic necessity, not a standard public relations task.

The Pre-Workshop Survey To maximize our time at the June retreat, we aim to have our baseline narrative "70% baked" before you even arrive in the room. So your input here matters.