Greening Transportation Infrastructure Development (GRID)

Why GRID?

Transportation infrastructure—including roads, rail, waterways, and ports—plays a critical role in connecting people to goods and services and supporting economic growth. Yet, it is also a top driver of habitat loss and fragmentation worldwide, opening access for illegal logging and hunting, disrupting wildlife migration pathways, and degrading biodiversity and ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration and resilience. Environmental degradation also puts the infrastructure itself at risk from hazards such as landslides and flooding.

To protect biodiversity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen resilience to climate change, and adequately address the growing global demand for transportation infrastructure, conventional infrastructure planning must be replaced with a process where biodiversity and ecosystem services are valued and protected. This transformation will require multisectoral, integrated, and transparent approaches.

A Global Challenge

Goals of GRID

GRID aims to enable countries to meet transportation infrastructure needs, including associated benefits critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Paris Agreement goals, and Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework targets. The program’s objective is to advance the transition toward sustainable transportation infrastructure that safeguards and enhances key coastal, marine, and terrestrial ecosystems.

GRID will focus on the following:

Key Environmental Benefits

By strengthening early, integrated planning and decision-making processes to inform countries’ sustainable development of transportation infrastructure, GRID will benefit ecosystems, biodiversity, our climate, and society.