&Green Fund

Organizational profile: &Green was developed and set up by IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative under close collaboration with NICFI as a Dutch foundation in 2017. &Green invests in commercial projects in agricultural production value chains in order to protect and restore tropical forests and peatlands and make agriculture more sustainable and inclusive – involving local communities, producers, financiers, supply chain companies, local and national government and civil society. The Fund’s goal is to prove that financing inclusive, sustainable and deforestation-free commodity production can be commercially viable and replicable, thus strengthening the case for a rural development paradigm that protects valuable forests and peatlands and supports high-productivity agriculture. &Green invests in private companies that are directly or indirectly involved in commodity production, including sufficiently independent state-owned enterprises. Sail Ventures oversees the day-to-day business and operations related to the management of the Fund.

&Green addresses ever-increasing rates of deforestation, forest loss and greenhouse gas emissions by aiming to close the market gap between the current lack of a short-term business case for forest and peatland protection and the possible long-term solutions with the Fund’s purpose-built capital for the sustainable intensification of agricultural production systems and business models that reduce deforestation. The Fund’s involvement mitigates the credit and environmental risk (of its projects and investees) for commercial investors, commodity players and consumer goods companies through strong financial and environmental instruments and covenants and by leveraging private sector investment. By limiting &Green’s investments to jurisdictions with progressive forest and/or peat protection strategies, the Fund ensures reinforcement of public policy signals through private sector investment.

Financing Instrument: Loans, Guarantees

Project scale: &Green aims for average investment sizes of $US5-15 million, with long-term subordinate credit (5 – 15 years).

Applicable geographical regions/country groups: &Green currently works in Colombia, Ecuador, Gabon, Indonesia, Liberia, Peru, and the states of Mato Grosso and Pará in Brazil.

Eligibility Criteria: &Green intends to catalyze investment into jurisdictions where local authorities, are also committed to the reduction in deforestation and are actively taking steps to work with the private sector, communities and civil society to protect forest and peatlands. The jurisdictional process is unique to &Green and provides a strong public policy signal alongside the private signal of an &Green investment. The Fund’s jurisdictional process also improves the country and environmental risk profile of the Fund’s investments, as it focuses on jurisdictions which are more likely to implement and enforce environmental policies aligned with the Fund’s investment criteria.

The following five criteria are included within the process:

1. Scope- the amount and quality of forest and/or peatland potential of the jurisdiction is significant and highly relevant from global perspective.

2. Ambition and Strategy- there is a clear strategy with the targets tracking the reduction of deforestation against historic trends in the jurisdiction.

3. Progress- timely progress towards milestones indicated in the strategy of the jurisdiction, on a trajectory towards the targets for reducing deforestation.

4. MRV- a transparent system is operational to monitor, measure, report and verify reductions in deforestation, and where relevant forest and peat degradation, in the jurisdiction.

5. Social and Environmental safeguards- progress shows towards implementation of the Cancun Agreement.

&Green is only able to invest when the country/region/province in which the investment is located meets the Jurisdictional Eligibility Criteria of the Fund. Currently, this includes Colombia, Ecuador, Gabon, Indonesia, Liberia, Peru, and the states of Mato Grosso and Pará in Brazil.

Application guidelines: &Green invites inquiries about the potential eligibility of projects for &Green investment through email at info@andgreen.fund.