Investing in forests and sustainable land use |
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Introducing Funds for Nature: matchmaking nature-based businesses with investors
For nature-based businesses starting up or hoping to expand, knowing how to find the right investors can be challenging and time consuming. To help simplify the search, Partnerships for Forests and the Blended Finance Taskforce have created a new matchmaking database.
Launched this month, Funds for Nature is a collaborative and accessible database of funds and asset managers that have mandates to invest in nature-based businesses. It covers the forest and land use, food and agriculture, and ocean and aquaculture sectors.
Funds for Nature offers useful insights for users across the investment landscape:
- Entrepreneurs can shortlist investors to target in their search for capital
- Funds of funds can get a clearer picture of the investment opportunities in the space
- Fund managers and researchers can benchmark and understand key investment gaps in these sectors
The database is open to new additions – get in touch to add add your organisation’s vehicles. Our team can also connect you with the investors featured.
Explore Funds for Nature >
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Ghana unlocks $4.9m carbon payment for cocoa smallholders under the World Bank’s emissions reduction program
In January, Ghana became the fourth country to receive payments from the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).
The landmark first payment of $4.9 million is tied to efforts to combat deforestation within Ghana’s cocoa sector. Together with the FCPF, Ghana has worked to make cocoa production, a leading cause of deforestation and forest degradation in the country, more sustainable by adopting climate-smart agroforestry techniques.
P4F supported the release of this payment through working with government of Ghana and supporting a climate-smart cocoa partnership led by cocoa trading company Touton to establish a landmark joint framework of action in a key cocoa-growing landscape and Hotspot Intervention Area to reduce emissions and promote sustainable land-use.
Through the FCPF, Ghana is eligible to receive up to $50 million for 10 million tons of verified reductions of CO2 emissions by the end of 2024.
Read more >
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Benso Oil Palm Plantation secures €10m to scale up its paradigm-shifting sustainable palm oil model in Ghana
P4F has supported BOPP, a subsidiary of Wilmar, to trial an innovative production model, aiming to transform business as usual in the region’s palm oil sector.
As the first company in Ghana to gain RSPO certification, and the second in Africa, BOPP’s strategy includes training smallholders in RSPO requirements while also as helping them to establish small businesses to supplement their income, helping boost forest protection, conservation, and landscape governance.
Since the project began, more than 300 smallholder farmers have benefitted from new livelihood options such as baking, pig farming and beekeeping.
Now in its scale-up phase, the project has secured €10 million to expand its community smallholder sustainable oil palm plantation into new areas. BOPP plans to bring 16,000 hectares of forests under protection and 4000 hectares under sustainable production by 2024.
Read more >
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Supporting policies for nature-based business
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Talking Latin American forest economies in new podcast
Our latest podcast series Isso Tambémé Floresta has been following challenges and opportunities around the future of forest-based business in Latin America.
Available to listen in Portuguese, each of the five 30-minute episodes covers pressing topics for the region’s tropical forests: from supply chain transparency, sustainable and inclusive strategies for a bioeconomy, to scaling finance and investment in sustainable agribusiness.
The series showcases innovative initiatives and sustainable businesses supported by P4F that have driven social, environmental, and economic gains while conserving forest landscapes, maintaining traditional livelihoods and restoring native ecosystems.
Full series available on Spotify (Portuguese) >
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Championing innovative ideas, technologies, and tools |
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Rimba Collective secures financing from large commodity companies for 100,000 hectares of forest conservation in Southeast Asia
Rimba Collective has been proving that nature conservation can be a viable business through an innovative supply chain procurement mechanism.
The initiative generates funding for pioneering projects that deliver verifiable forest conservation, ecosystem restoration and community forestry outcomes by securing contributions linked to procurement volumes from companies in key forest-risk commodity supply chains with sustainability commitments, including Procter & Gamble and Unilever.
The initiative was founded by Lestari Capital, a Singapore-based impact investment firm, with P4F’s support. By January 2023, the collective had financed over 100,000 hectares and is on track to reach 200,000 by the end of the year.
At the end of 2022, Rimba discussed progress towards its aim to deliver half a million hectares of forest conservation and restoration in Southeast Asia at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) annual Roundtable Conference on Sustainable Palm Oil.
Girish Deshpande, Sustainability Director at one of Rimba Collective’s Founding Partners, Procter & Gamble, said, "We've made this commitment (at P&G) for 700,000 hectares, and we're going to deliver a fair portion of those 700,000 ha through the Rimba Collective. For me, it's a big success... it's one of the biggest things I'm proud of working in the company."
Hear more reflections and insight from Girish and others in this two minute highlights reel >
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Landscape Approaches: new report showcases effective real-world examples
Our recently published Landscape Approaches report provides commodity producers in agricultural value chains insights on the different approaches they can take to achieve landscape-level sustainability.
The report showcases a global collection of 20 real-world examples from the Partnerships for Forests portfolio, where companies and projects are making transformative impacts in their landscapes and wider sector through collaborating with other stakeholders towards a common vision.
Building on Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and Proforest’s Practical Guide on ‘Landscape Scale Action for Forests, People and Sustainable Production’, this report provides insights from landscapes in Colombia, Brazil, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Indonesia as well as global sector-wide initiatives that companies are also collaborating on.
The report concludes with lessons for donors, commodity producers, and facilitators of landscape approaches from P4F’s perspective as a portfolio manager.
Landscape Approaches webinar
We’ll be inviting readers to join us for a webinar on landscape approaches later in 2023. If you’d be interested in attending, let us know via our feedback survey.
Read the report >
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Supporting people through nature-based solutions
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Fostering the bioeconomy in the Brazilian Amazon
We spoke to biotech entrepreneur Danniel Pinheiro to understand more about how his startup, Biozer da Amazônia, supports extractivist communities in the Brazilian Amazon to enhance biodiversity with sustainably sourced food and cosmetics ingredients.
“We want to stop being just potential for this or that, to offer products with technology and innovation, to show that Amazonian companies are capable of bringing products to the world with safety and traceability in the manufacturing process.”
Read his story >
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Securing fair market access for arenga palm sugar farmers in Indonesia
We meet Slamet Sudijono co-founder and CEO of Mahorahora, an arenga palm sugar start-up that supports communities around the Gunung Halimun Salak national park, West Java, to connect to new markets.
“We want the world to know that there is an alternative to white sugar, which has an authentic taste and aroma, and most importantly, one that comes from Indonesia.”
Read his story >
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Report
Our latest report, Landscape Approaches, provides commodity producers in agricultural value chains with insights on the types ofapproaches they can take to achieve landscape-level sustainability.
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Briefing
In this briefing, Mobilising Finance for Forests, Partnerships for Forests, and the Blended Finance Taskforce highlight how early mover investors can capitalise on a largely untapped financing opportunity and unlock private sector investments in forests and sustainable land use to meet net-zero and deforestation-free commitments and deliver biodiversity benefits.
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From illipe nut to soya, emerging commodities to incumbent industries, we’re supporting a range of regenerative business models fit for people and planet.
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Our partnerships are at the forefront of the transition to sustainable, forest-positive economies. Trialling these new models means that we're learning a lot. You can browse our recent insights in our resources hub.
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