Urapi Invests $10.8 Million in a New Project. Promising Innovations For COCLA.

AGRI3 Fund and HSBC India announce Partnership Agreement for Agri financing, commencing with partial guarantee for USD 50 million MFI lending program

The Restoration Explorer empowers practitioners to become ecopreneurs, driving innovation and impact in restoration.

The AGRI3 Fund is delighted to announce the appointment of Deniz Harut as CEO & Managing Director of the AGRI3 Fund, bringing 19 years of experience in emerging markets and sustainable finance.

New Forests is announcing the first investment for its Tropical Asia Forest Fund 2 (TAFF2), investing in conserving and restoring the Kuan Kreng Landscape (KKL) in Thailand, which holds the country’s second largest peat swamp forest area.

The RCF Initiative aims to catalyze growth and scale by providing finance to impact funds supporting the SDGs. It received the award for consistently showcasing its potential to mobilize private sector capital.

Dubai, 9 December 2023 – Close to $7 trillion is invested globally each year in activities that have a direct negative impact on nature from both public and private sector sources - equivalent to roughly 7 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - according to the latest State of Finance for Nature report released today at COP28 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and partners.

In this case study JGP Asset Management show how tackling deforestation using active ownership, creative financing, and nature restoration provides a holistic approach to driving the shift towards more sustainable commodity supply chains.

Rabobank has closed a 10-year loan of USD 20 million for Agro São José, with AGRI3 taking a 40% risk participation to enable a longer tenor of the facility. The loan will be used to finance a range of investments related to the expansion of the regenerative practices applied by the group and will support Agro São José with transitioning from a conventional to a regenerative business model.

Policy incentives needed, but investors need to broaden scope of nature-positive investments says UNEP’s Mulder.

Education and sensitization are key to unlocking investment in forests and sustainable land use in Latin America

Sharing Lessons and Opportunities to Scale up Investment in the LATAM Region

AGRI3 has provided a 50% pari passu guarantee to Old Mutual Investment Group Limited in Malawi, in order to support a Malawi Kwacha 19.5bln (USD 12mln), 10 year loan for Gala Agriculture Co Ltd (GalaMacs). The loan will be used to support the company’s operations and expansion, supporting sustainable agricultural production, improved livelihoods and forest conservation on the farm. This represents the first transaction the fund has closed in Africa.

The &Green Fund, investing to end deforestation from tropical commodity production, doubles its capital with a breakthrough USD 180 million contribution from the Green Climate Fund.

A guest blog by Ivo Mulder, Leader of UNEP's Climate Finance Unit

The Restoration Seed Capital Facility (RSCF) has approved Colombia-based, Campo Capita as the first partner to qualify for new fund development support under the Facility’s Support Line 1. In addition, RSCF has approved Impact Earth as a new partner to receive support to identify and develop a strong pipeline of restoration-focused investments in the Amazon.

The Responsible Commodities Facility (RCF) Cerrado Programme Fund Has Been Expanded More Than Four-Fold To US$47 Million, Through An Innovative Blended Finance Structure.

The Restoration Explorer tool has been successfully piloted with a select group of restoration-focused entrepreneurs, trainers and NGOs in two days of workshops in Nairobi, Kenya.

Opinion by By Ertharin Cousin, Dariush Mozaffarian

Achieving positive E&S impacts together with strong financial returns and Accelerating pipeline development

How can landscape restoration-focused funds maximize positive environmental and social impacts? Learn more about how UNEP's Positive Impact Indicators can support the development of robust E&S frameworks for sustainable land-use funds

UNEP’s Climate finance chief on why there is still hope

The Facility’s Pilot Programme Demonstrates Strong Proof of Concept

The AGRI3 Fund is aiming to address this challenge by seeking to mobilize USD 1 billion in capital from commercial banks, development finance institutions and institutional investors to finance sustainable agricultural practices.

Mercon Coffee Group, which ranks among the top 10 coffee suppliers in the world, has joined &Green Fund's investment portfolio. Through this partnership, Mercon will advance the transformation of coffee value chains in Vietnam- making them more sustainable, deforestation-free, and climate-resilient.

A U.N.-backed group of global financial institutions including Dutch lender Rabobank on Thursday set out a series of company specific environmental and social targets aimed at helping drive a shift to a more sustainable food system.

A zero-deforestation soy finance initiative managed by Sustainable Investment Management (SIM) and backed by a 'green bond' invested in by three UK supermarket chains has scooped the Green bond initiative of the year award.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has finalized a USD 13.5 million equity investment in The Sustainable Trade Initiative’s public-private partnership, the AGRI3 Fund, to enable increased finance mobilization for sustainable agriculture and forest conservation activities across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Drilling deep into sustainable investment strategies

Learn how new innovations and investable projects are transforming sustainable finance

The Responsible Commodities Facility, the Restoration Seed Capital Facility and AGRI3 Fund are three innovative approaches to finance working to close the nature finance gap

As investors look to make a positive impact at the nexus of the climate and biodiversity crises, nature-based solutions cover a broader range than is widely understood.

How unlocking finance can help conserve and protect critical ecosystems, and ward off the looming extinction of one million species.

Increased private sector funding seen as critical to acceleration of investments to meet climate change, biodiversity and land degradation targets.

Decades of intensive agriculture threaten the Cerrado region, which acts as an important carbon dioxide ‘sink’ and helps fend off global warming.

Standardisation is required to accurately quantify the environmental and social impacts of land-use investments, says Ivo Mulder, Head of the UN Environment Programme’s Climate Finance Unit.

Over five episodes UNEP and the Green Finance Institute spoke with global experts and local delivery partners to hear what we need from governments at COP27 to close the nature finance gap and to showcase the crucial role private sector investment can play.

The AGRI3 Fund has de-risked a 10-year loan from Rabobank which will finance a range of sustainability investments, implemented by grain and cotton producer Grupo Locks.

RSCF will provide The Shared Wood Company and New Forests with financial support to accelerate their efforts in identifying and developing a strong pipeline of investments in nature-based solutions that contribute to the protection, sound management and restoration of forest ecosystems across Central, South America, Southeast Asia and Africa.

As the world heads towards negotiations on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, nature is still under-financed, the second edition of the State of Finance for Nature reveals.

UNEP State of Finance for Nature report found that private sector investment in Nature-based Solutions (NbS) represents only 17 per cent of total NbS investment, representing an enormous opportunity for private sector actors to increase financial flows to NbS, whether that be through institutional, commercial or impact investment.

This five-episode series Financing Nature: COP27 Special - will build awareness of the need for private finance in delivering the nature-positive outcomes we urgently need for climate mitigation and adaptation.

The new &Green Fund’s project is focused on the construction of a crude palm oil mill in West Kalimantan to contribute to smallholder empowerment and the establishment of a traceable, inclusive, and deforestation-free palm oil supply chain.

FS Agrisolutions, a Brazilian top tier producer of corn-based bioenergy and high-value added animal nutrition products, is now part of &Green's portfolio of investments.

UK Supermarkets Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose this week announced an US$11 million investment in the Responsible Commodities Facility. The investment will support 36 farms in the Cerrado region of Brazil to produce deforestation and conversion-free soy, resulting in the projected conservation of 11,000 ha of native vegetation.

The collaborative Good Food Finance Network (GFFN) recently held its first ‘Good Food Finance Week’. Key outcomes include the proposal of a co-investment platform to tackle global food security challenges and the announcement of two co-chairs.

New opportunities for climate- and nature-positive impact investments are emerging, rapidly.

The Restoration Seed Capital Facility (RSCF) has approved Arbaro Advisors and Ecotierra as its first two partners to qualify for the Facility’s support. The co-funding provided by the Facility will boost the efforts of these fund managers in developing a pipeline of investments in nature-based solutions that contribute to forest restoration.

G20 country investments in nature-based solutions (NbS) need to reach USD 285 billion/year by 2050 to address the interrelated climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crises; however, current G20 spending is only USD 120 billion/year. These are the findings of a new report, the State of Finance for Nature in the G20’.

A total investment in nature of USD 8.1 trillion is required between now and 2050 – while annual investment should reach USD 536 billion annually by 2050 – in order to successfully tackle the interlinked climate, biodiversity, and land degradation crises, according to the State of Finance for Nature report released today.

The Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility has channeled US$95 million in financing to Indonesia rubber producers and helped them plant dense fields of trees on already marginal land, sparing virgin forests.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and meeting the climate commitments of the Paris Agreement requires food to be produced more sustainably and efficiently. Currently, agriculture is responsible for around 33% of greenhouse gas emissions and 70% of freshwater use. However, this is unsustainable and, if scaled, will lead to even faster degradation of our planetary systems, resulting in significant financial and material implications for investors.

Financial institutions around the world can now measure the positive impact of their investments into biodiversity conversation, adaptation, mitigation, forest protection and sustainable livelihoods with the help of a new indicator directory and resources platform, launched today.