Job Summary

This role creates a strategic position in WRI Indias Cities Program where you will have direct access to WRI Indias on-ground implementation experience, its policy relationships, and its global network, and will be positioned to produce economic evidence with real consequences for how Indian cities plan, budget, and invest in resilience. You will use your expertise in valuing natural infrastructure, quantifying adaptation co-benefits, and building investment cases that meet the standards of government planners, development finance institutions, and private capital markets. The role draws directly on WRI Indias rich pilot experiences- treating on-the-ground implementations as living laboratories for economic valuation, global NbS research and connects that evidence to Indias policy ecosystem and climate finance architecture.

Equity and distributional impact are not peripheral concerns in this role. Indias most heat-exposed, flood-prone, and air-polluted urban communities are overwhelmingly low-income, and the economic case for natural infrastructure must be built to capture and advocate for the benefits that accrue to them.

What will you do

Economic Research, Valuation Evidence Building

- Lead the economic valuation of WRI India Cities Programme pilots - including urban NbS interventions, cooling solutions, urban greening, and hybrid infrastructure - quantifying benefits such as increased productivity, improved air quality, flood mitigation, urban cooling, carbon sequestration, and community health outcomes.

- Develop and maintain cost-benefit models, ecosystem services assessment frameworks, and tools tailored to Indian urban contexts, drawing on global methodologies (TEEB, InVEST, SEEA) and adapting them for local data environments and policy audiences.

- Build economic evidence for natural infrastructure that explicitly captures distributional and equity dimensions - quantifying who bears adaptation costs, who receives perks, and how NbS investments can be designed to maximise outcomes for vulnerable communities including informal settlements, outdoor workers, and women.

- Synthesise evidence from WRI Indias on-ground pilots with India-specific data (national accounts, urban health and mortality data, NFHS, NSSO, urban local body expenditure data)



and global NbS economic literature to produce robust, India-grounded valuations.

- Develop and maintain economic models that support scenario analysis - enabling program teams and government partners to compare the cost-effectiveness of NbS versus grey infrastructure interventions, and project economic returns under different climate trajectories.

- Produce high-quality research outputs - working papers, technical reports, policy briefs, and peer-reviewed publications, that position WRI India as a leading voice on the economics of urban natural infrastructure in India and the Global South.

Climate Finance, Investment Readiness Policy Engagement

- Work closely with the climate finance team to help build investment cases for natural infrastructure projects at city and state scale - developing bankable project structures, articulating financial returns and risk profiles, and translating economic evidence into formats accessible to development finance institutions (World Bank, ADB, NDB, GCF, AIIB), green bond issuers, and blended finance vehicles.

- Analyse and engage with Indias public finance architecture for urban resilience - including AMRUT 2.0, National Urban Livelihood Mission, NDMA climate risk funds, and city and state climate action budgets- identifying entry points where economic evidence can shift program design and resource allocation toward natural infrastructure.

- Support the development of economic frameworks for WRI Indias

- Liaise with WRI s Climate, Economics and Finance (CEF) Unit, Cities4Forests, and the RKE teams to connect WRI Indias evidence base with global economic research, financial instrument development, and international advocacy on NbS finance.

- Engage proactively with government counterparts in urban local bodies, state urban development departments, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, NDMA and NITI Aayog to ensure economic evidence is designed to inform real planning and budgetary decisions.





- Contribute economic analysis and investment narratives to program fundraising - supporting grant proposals, concept notes, and donor pitches with evidence-based economic arguments and realistic mobilisation scenarios.

Pilot Learning, Monitoring Adaptive Management

- Work closely with implementation and field teams to design monitoring and evaluation frameworks for pilot NbS interventions - ensuring that economic and equity data are collected systematically and can feed directly into valuation models and replication cases.

- Develop standardised economic data collection protocols for WRI Indias urban pilots, enabling consistent benefit tracking across sites and over time.

- Produce learning briefs and replication toolkits that distil economic evidence from pilots into practical guidance for cities, government agencies, and implementing partners seeking to scale NbS investment.

- Contribute to Cities portfolio by identifying shifts in the evidence base that should inform program strategy.

Capacity Building, Partnerships Thought Leadership

- Build the economic analysis capacity of Cities program staff - providing mentoring, and peer review to ensure economic thinking is embedded across and not siloed in this role.

- Develop and maintain partnerships with Indian academic institutions, think tanks and international research organisations to strengthen the evidence base and extend WRI Indias reach in environmental economics.

- Represent WRI India at national and international forums on urban resilience economics - contributing to conferences, working groups, and expert panels.

- Engage with Indias emerging ESG, sustainable finance, and green bond ecosystems, positioning WRI Indias economic evidence as a resource for private sector actors seeking credible NbS investment frameworks.

What will you need

- Postgraduate degree in environmental economics, ecological economics, natural resource economics, development economics, or a closely related field. PhD preferred; Masters

Disclaimer: This job posting has been aggregated from external source. Role details, content, and availability are subject to change. Applicants are advised to confirm the latest information directly on the company website before applying.

📌 Program Lead - Environmental Economist (Mumbai)
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