Description
The case studies of the State of Finance for Nature initiative are examples of investment models that could be replicated or scaled-up across the globe. They contribute to shape a future that not only acknowledges but also demonstrates how investing in nature-based solutions can address the multi-faceted environmental crises and broader societal challenges that affect humanity today.
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Categories
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Highlights
Building resilience of urban populations with ecosystem-based solutions in Lao PDR
- Region: Southeast Asia | Laos
- Type of NbS: Cities & infrastructure
- Societal Challenge: Disaster Risk
- Financial Instrument: Grant
- Source: Public
The project implemented by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (in cooperation with UNEP), and co-funded by the Green Climate Fund, is deploying nature-based solutions (NbS) in four cities in Laos to build resilience against flooding caused by climate change.
The project entered its implementation phase in June 2020, and over the following five years will help restore urban wetland and stream ecosystems to regulate water flow and reduce flood risk. The investments will shift the focus of urban flood management from hard infrastructure towards the integration of NbS, and it is expected to benefit 10 percent of the country’s population. The project recognises that NbS offer cost-effective ways of managing flood risk, as stated by Ms. Sara Sekkenes, the UN Resident Coordinator to Lao PDR: “The project works to help strengthen the evidence base around these solutions, so that successful solutions may be promoted and adopted more widely.” Flood risk poses a significant challenge in Laos – in 2018, the damage from floods were equivalent to 10 percent of Laos’ entire budget for the year. The project’s NbS focus can help avoid these economic damages by controlling water flow, preventing floods and landslides in a cost-effective manner with various co benefits for the city’s residents, including green spaces, decreased temperatures, and tourism opportunities.
Café Selva Norte project in Peru - Mirova Land Degradation Neutrality Fund
- Region: Latin America | Peru / Worldwide
- Type of NbS: Agriculture; Restoration & other Ecosystems
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity
- Source: Blended
The Café Selva Norte project, financed by the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) Fund, aims at reversing land degradation by implementing sustainable coffee plantations on degraded areas in Peru. It creates a scalable model for sustainable agroforestry that could be replicated at a landscape level in other areas of Peru and South America. This USD 12 million investment aims to transform 9000 hectares of degraded land into productive agroforestry areas, avoid or sequester 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, and improve the livelihoods of 2400 producers.
The LDN Fund is an investment vehicle co-promoted by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and Mirova. The blended finance fund is designed to support scalable land degradation reduction and reversal by leveraging public funding to catalyse private investments at scale. The fund primarily invests in sustainable agriculture and forestry, as well as other LDN-related solutions like ecotourism and green infrastructure, to restore degraded land, mitigate climate change and improve livelihoods.
Credit Union's Social Performance Management - innovative financing schemes to support integrated landscape initiatives
- Region: Southeast | Indonesia
- Type of NbS: Agriculture
- Societal Challenge:Economic and Social Development; Food Security
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Private
The Indonesian Credit Union Semandang Jaya provides small scale farmers with alternative financing solutions that support them not only in continuing their farming business, but also in improving their industry knowledge. The Credit Union established the Social Performance Management (SPM), which provides alternative savings and loans to sustainable agribusinesses across various sectors such as agriculture, livestock, plantations, fisheries, and eco-tourism,. In addition, in cooperation with other stakeholders, it offers mandatory technical assistance in the form of training and capacity building for loan beneficiaries. Based on the ongoing research "Finance for Integrated Landscape Management" by Tropenbos Indonesia, the SPM loans have positive impacts by increasing revenue and food security, creating new employment opportunities, building social solidarity, and providing equal access to financial services, along with positively impacting climate change mitigation, protecting biodiversity, reducing forest fires and illegal logging, preventing illegal mining, and promoting crop diversification.
The Green Gigaton Challenge
- Region: Worldwide
- Type of NbS: Forestry
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Grants
- Source: Blended
Launched by Emergent Forest Finance Accelerator and UN-REDD in 2020, the Green Gigaton Challenge (GGC) is an initiative that aims to facilitate a substantial increase in both international public and private results-based funding commitments which are essential to protect tropical rainforests. The global initiative aspires to mobilise funds to achieve a target of one gigaton of emission reductions per year by 2025. With an initial floor price of USD 10 per ton, this bid presents attractive prices for forest countries. The GGC will address key challenges for forest countries implementing REDD+, specifically, the combined effect of the unpredictability of external financing and the current low prices for forest carbon (averaging USD 5 per tCO2e for results-based payments and USD 4.3 per tCO2e in voluntary carbon markets) which limit the ability of governments to implement the required policy changes to address forest loss.
Livelihoods Mount Elgon Project
- Region: Africa | Kenya
- Type of NbS: Sustainable Production & Consumption
- Societal Challenge: Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity; Grants
- Source: Private
The region of Mount Elgon in Kenya faces both environmental and socioeconomic challenges. Issues such as deforestation and unsustainable agricultural practices threaten not only the region’s biodiversity, but also its watersheds which connect to Lake Victoria. Moreover, the lack of access to water and nutrient-rich feed has negatively impacted farmers’ livelihoods. The Livelihoods Fund is an investment fund developed in 2016 with the ambition of boosting the local dairy economy with an investment of around USD 200 million, sequestering 1 million tonnes of CO2, and increasing crop yields by 30% until 2026. The Fund focuses specifically on agricultural productivity, dairy value chain development and environmental conservation. It seeks to achieve its objectives by educating 30,000 farmers over 35,000 hectares of land about sustainable land management practices, as well as by supporting 15 cooperatives with various tasks on the ground. The overarching goal of the initiative is to create a sustainable supply chain that will be linked to East-Africa’s primary dairy company, Brookside Dairy. As at 2018, 19,000 farmers had engaged in the project and water quality modelling showed improvements in water quality everywhere.
Peatland Action - Restoring Scotland’s Peatlands
- Region: Europe | Scotland
- Type of NbS: Restoration & other Ecosystems
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Grant
- Source: Public
Over 80% of Scotland’s peatlands, which occupy more than one fifth of the country’s land area, are in poor condition. As degraded peatlands are a source of greenhouse gases, restoring them is an effective way to prevent further emissions, as well as biodiversity loss. In 2012, the Scottish Government allocated funds to NatureScot to start a capital grant fund – Peatland Action – which supports on-the-ground peatland restoration projects in the country. In 2020, the government announced an increased investment in peatland restoration of more than £250 million over the next 10 years, which includes the expansion of the Peatland Action programme. Since the programme’s start in 2012, over 25,000 hectares have been set on the road to recovery. To help facilitate future restoration projects, feasibility studies covering over 200,000 hectares have been completed. In addition, a monitoring strategy is in place, increasing the understanding of restoration success and allowing the tracking of carbon emissions following restoration.
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Agriculture
- Region: Worldwide
- Societal challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial instrument: Risk Mitigation
- Source: Blended
The Agri3 Fund, founded by UNEP and Rabobank, and later expanding to include the Dutch Development Bank and the Sustainable Trade Initiative, aims to mobilize USD 1 billion of private capital towards sustainable land-use, by providing investors with de-risking instruments and value chain actors with grants for technical assistance.
- Region: Asia | Jordan
- Societal challenge: Water Security
- Financial instrument: Debt; Equity
- Source: Blended
The project, implemented in parallel with the Wastewater Network Project, aims to improve Jordan's water management by increasing the capacity to treat wastewater, providing affordable, high-quality treated wastewater for agricultural use, and freeing up fresh water for other uses.
- Region: Asia | Turkey
- Societal Challenge: Water Security
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity
- Source: Blended
The Büyük Menderes River Basin plays an important role in Turkey's natural and agricultural areas. This project is aimed at improving the water quality from low to good and creating a basin wide partnership of civil society, government and the private sector, while driving an effective wetland management and restoration policy. So far, 1.5 million cubic meters of water have been saved, and at least a 20% impact on water quality has been mitigated. Feasibility studies showed, that the interventions resulted in significant saving, with relatively short payback periods.
- Region: Latin America
- Societal Challenge: Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity
- Source: Private
The EcoEnterprise Fund works as a venture fund, channeling financial flows to support natural assets. Through private sector investment, small business receive the funds to secure their long-term natural resource management. The Interamerican Development Bank has attracted investment from over 40 companies and mobilised US$ 140, making them the Funds largest investor. To overcome the high-risk when investing in natural assets, the EcoEnterprise has created 5 versatile core strategies, securing further engagement.
- Region: Worldwide
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Econonic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity
- Source: Blended
The Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) Fund managed by Mirova and sponsored by i.a. the European Investment Bank aims to restore degraded land to mitigate climate change and improve livelihoods, investing mostly in sustainable agriculture and forestry.
- Region: Latin America
- Societal Challenge: Food Security; Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Grants
- Source: Private
The Inga Foundation aims to establish seed-banks and demonstration centers in all Central American countries. Further expansion to Madagascar, as well as the exchange of knowledge throughout the interested communities of the humid tropics was proposed. The Inga alley cropping model addresses food insecurity issues, slash-and-burn issues, carbon-sequestration and the regeneration of degraded land, only to name a few.
- Region: Europe | UK, Italy, Hungary
- Societal Challenge: Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
The Landscape Enterprise Network links management and investment in nature based solutions to the long-term needs of businesses and society. To do so, the network is established through 3 steps. 1st, a Network Opportunity Analysis is conducted, to identify the best possible starting point for building a network. In Step 2, a Basic Operating Unit, focused on building a first anchor value chain, is created. In the third, final step, this regional network is strengthened and expanded, requiring organisational infrastructure and governance.
- Region: Latin America | Peru
- Societal challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity
- Source: Private
The Mirova natural capital platform covers a range of investment categories, from terrestrial to marine, including the 2013 launched climate fund ACF. The fund was set up in order to help channel investment into projects aiming at reducing deforestation and climate change impacts. As an example, long-term conservation of threatened natural forests in Peru, received US$ 7 Million. With a focus on agroforestry, the production of deforestation-free cacao in the region was increased, and amounted to at least 3,200 tonnes every year.
- Region: Southeast Asia | Indonesia
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity; Grants
- Source: Blended
The Royal Lestari Utama (RLU) Project is South East Asia's first Corporate Sustainability Bond. It was issued by the Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility in 2018, and helps transform degraded landscapes into climate-smart, wildlife friendly, socially inclusive rubber plantations. Michelin has committed to purchasing 75% of the rubber produced by the plantations.
- Region: Asia | Kyrgyzstan
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
Through a policy review conducted by UNDP BIOFIN, inappropriate land-use and water-management practices were revealed in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyzstan Government then proposed a Green Economy Development Program, in which agricultural support was revied on the extent of their environmental impact. Through this collaboration of UNDP BIOFIN and the Kyrgyzstan government, the most harmful subsidies could be identified, and new policies, supporting a transition towards a greener, rural agriculture, could be formulated.
- Region: Worldwide
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Equity
- Source: Private
Trailhead is an investment firm that backs entrepreneurs in the field of regenerative agriculture, with the overarching mission to create not only financial but also positive environmental and social returns. Companies that Trailhead have partnered with to date include Vence, TelesSense and HowGood.
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Biodiversity
- Country: Latin America | Brazil
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial instrument: Debt; Equity; Grants
- Source: Blended
The Althelia Biodiversity Fund is a blended finance fund founded by Mirova, created to mobilize US$100 million into sustainable projects that focus on biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and improving community livelihoods in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Country: Global
- Societal challenge: Climate Change
- Financial instrument: Grants
- Source: Private
ASN Bank created the Biodiversity Footprint Financial Institutions method (BFFI) as a tool for financial institutions to measure the positive biodiversity impacts of their investments, since previously only the negative aspects have been taken into account.
- Region: Africa | South Africa
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
The South African government demonstrates how tax incentives can motivate landowners to engage in biodiversity conservation, by offering tax breaks for private landowners part-taking in declaring and managing protected areas of land within their properties.
- Region: Europe | France
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Public
With the launch of the EUR 7 billion Green OAT by Agence France Trésor, France became the world's first country to issue a sovereign green benchmark bond. Since its launch, additional bonds have been issued, raising the total capital to EUR 25.3 billion in April 2020. By September 2020, these bonds cumulatively had raised EUR 3.13 billion for activities related to biodiversity conservation.
- Region: Latin America | Mexico
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Public
Mexico invested in policy-based loans in both 2012 and 2017 to support the country's biodiversity. As a result of these loans, new local governance mechanisms for ecological landscape management were established, rural development policies were strengthened to align better with biodiversity conservation policies, and sustainable commodity production practices were promoted.
- Region: Latin America | Peru
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Grants
- Source: Public
The project, in action since 2017, is managed by the Green Climate Fund and serves the purpose to sustainably manage the swamps of Datem del Marañón in Peru. To date, 2.6 million tonnes of emissions have been avoided. Within the span of 10 years, it is estimated that 4.861 ha of landscapes will be saved from deforestation, and 343.000 ha of forests and peatlands will be conserved.
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Cities & Infrastructure
- Region: Asia | India
- Societal Challenge: Water Security
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Blended
Together with the local government of Udaipur (Rajasthan), Hindustan Zinc established the area's first wastewater treatment plant. It is estimated to treat 100% of the domestic sewage and to conserve 60 million liters of freshwater every day, while at the same time generating financial returns from e.g. sales of manure.
- Region: Europe | UK
- Societal Challenge: Water Security; Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Private
Norfolk Rivers Trust and Anglian Water started a project to improve the water quality of River Ingol. This was done by creating a natural wetland that acts as a biological water filter, cleaning the water that flows into the river. The project has delivered significant positive changes in terms of water consumption savings, carbon dioxide emission reductions, and biodiversity improvements.
- Region: Africa | Kenya
- Societal Challenge: Water Security; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Blended
Kenya Pooled Water Fund (KPWF) was established to fill in the financing gap of the Kenyan water and sewerage system. KPWF leverages pooling of loans to lower the risk for bondowners. KPWF creates an opportunity for government and other development partners to achieve multiple leverage of their sectors financial contributions in the aim of achieving 100% coverage in the water and sewerage sector by 2030.
- Region: Africa | Tanzania
- Societal Challenge: Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity
- Source: Private
The project, managed by Redavia and partners, aims to through solar farms improve the conditions of rural communities in Tanzania, as well as to provide small and medium sized enterprises with reliable and affordable power, allowing them to become more productive and profitable. The estimated impacts of the project include reaching 9,400 beneficiaries and reducing costs by 20-30%. Financial returns are generated from electricity tariffs.
- Region: North America | USA
- Societal Challenge: Disaster Risk
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Public
Storm water management is a challenging issue for cities. Through green infrastructure, storm water can be managed, while it provides additional benefits over traditional "grey" infrastructure.
- Region: North America | USA
- Societal Challenge: Water Security; Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Grants
- Source: Private
The US Aquatic Resources Compensatory Mitigation Program is a mitigation banking programme that targets wetlands and aquatic resources. The purpose of this program is to ensure no net loss of wetlands in the United States and keep waters clean from harmful chemical and physical debris.
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Forestry
- Region: North America | USA
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Private
Issued by the Conservation Fund (TCF) , a US environmental non-profit, the USD 150 million 10-year bond is closed in Sep 2009. The goal is to invest all proceeds into projects that will create permanent conservation outcomes and improve local livelihoods. To date, the proceeds of the bonds have financed 8 projects covering an area or more than 230,000 acres with 56 million metric tons of CO2e sequestered.
- Region: Latin America | Costa Rica
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
Costa Rica’s 3.5% carbon tax partially funds the country’s payments for ecosystem services programme, which works towards disincentives of deforestation. It is a central policy for the nation’s goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2021.
- Region: Tropics
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Blended
Established in 2019 by the Environmental Defense Fund, Emergent is a non-profit intermediary engaging between tropical forest nations and private sectors. It uses a public-private model to create long-term, large-scale incentives for forest protection by guaranteeing the purchase of forest nations' credits.
- Region: Southeast Asia | Indonesia
- Societal Challenge: Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity; Grant
- Source: Blended
Fairventures Social Forestry aims to showcase a sustainable and commercially viable business model, that generates profits through reviving degraded lands through introducing agroforestry systems including cash crops, and managing forests as protected areas, thereby increasing the value of secondary forests. The project is estimated to rehabilitate 100,00 hectares of degraded land, and to improve 50,000 livelihoods.
- Region: North America | USA
- Societal Challenge: Disaster Risk
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Blended
The Forest Resilience Bond (FRB) is an initiative of Blue Forest Conservation in collaboration with Encourage Capital and the World Resources Institute. It leverages a public-private partnership that enables private capital to finance forest restoration in the United States and is especially targeted at wildfire prevention. FRB aims at bridging the gap between investors and environmental interventions by innovations in measurement technology, contracting scheme, and financial structures.
- Region: Africa | Kenya
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Private
Forests Bond is issued by IFC and the proceeds are used to support sustainable private sector development. The investors may select between a coupon or a carbon credit. One of the beneficiary project financed by IFC Forests Bond is the Rukinga Wildlife Sanctuary in the Kasigau Corridor in East Kenya, the project is expected to offset 1.4 million tons of CO2 emissions each year for the next 30 years.
- Region: Southeast Asia | Indonesia
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
In May 2011, Indonesia put into effect a two-year moratorium on the award of new concession licenses for the exploitation of primary natural forests and peatlands. 43 million hectares of primary forests and peat lands with significant carbon stocks are under the concession protection. The moratorium is part of Indonesia's effort to achieve its emission reduction goal.
- Region: Oceania | New Zealand
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Water Security; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
One Billion Trees Programme was developed by the New Zealand government in 2019, with the aim of improving soil and water quality, helping New Zealand to meet its international climate change commitments and increase the countries biodiversity. It offers a range of different incentives and funding options for organizations, landowners and communities to reach one billion trees planted by 2028, as well as a tracking system, which shows how many trees have been planted so far.
- Region: Latin America | Costa Rica
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Water Security
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
In 1996, a 'Payment for Ecological Servcies' (PES) Programme was introduced in Costa Rica. The programme, managed by the National Forestry Finance Fund, compensates landowners for their sustainable land-use management practices, such as reforestation and agroforestry. Since its implementation, 16,500 contracts with landowners have been signed, and 1,250,000 hectares of forest has been restored. Forest cover increased from 26% in 1983 to 52% in 2019.
- Region: Latin America | Brazil
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Equity
- Source: Blended
Fundo Vale is developing an impact investing platform (Project Development Facility or “PDF”) for fostering reforestation at scale in Brazil. By developing and seed-funding a pipeline of investment opportunities, the platform can achieve at least 100,000 (100K) hectares of reforestation in collaboration with community partners, government, financial and others interested companies focus in agroforestry, silvipastoral and other business models.
- Region: Southeast Asia | Malaysia
- Societal challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Debt; Equity
- Source: Private
Managed by New Forests, TAFF is the first sustainable forestry fund in Asia. It invests in sustainable plantation forestry in South-east Asia. In 2012, the fund had a final close at $170 million in capital commitments. New Forests is a sustainable real assets investment manage which has approximately 1 million hectares of lands and forests in its portfolio.
- Region: North America | USA
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation; Risk Mitigation
- Source: Blended
In 2014, USAID's Development Credit Authority issued a 133.8 million loan guarantee to Mirova's climate fund ACF. The guarantee will support REDD+ and other conservation projects, while at the same time help stimulate large-scale private investment into the fund. Over the span of 10 years, the loan guarantee is estimated to reduce emissions by 100 million tonnes CO2eq.
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Restoration & other Ecosystems
- Region: Worldwide
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Grants
- Source: Blended
Managed by IUCN with the support of the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, BNCFF creates a pipeline for the development of sound, investable blue nature capital projects which aim to protect, restore and enhance coastal natural ecosystems. The facility provides grants and technical support to project developers.
- Region: Asia | China
- Societal Challenge: Disaster
- Financial Instruments: Grants
- Source: Source
As an attempt to mitigate floodings, China's Sloping Lands Conservation Programme (SLCP) was introduced in 1999. The programme provides rural households that convert sloped arable land into grassland of forest with fixed payment incentives. Already in 2005, the programme showed positive environmental outcomes in terms of e.g. soil erosion control.
- Region: Southeast Asia | Myanmar
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
Restoration efforts have been taking place in the Ayeyarwady Delta to halt mangrove loss since the 1980s. Recently, restoration activities involving local Forest User Groups (FUGs) pointed the way towards successful government-NGO collaborations to curb further mangrove degradation.
- Region: Latin America | Mexico
- Societal Challenge: Disaster Risk
- Financial Instrument: Risk Mitigation
- Source: Public
In 2019, the government of Quintana Roo, Mexico purchased a provisionary insurance for coral reefs covering an area of 160 km along the coastline. In 2020, the insurance was triggered by Hurricane Delta which hit the costal of Quintana Roo. The almost $800K payout of the insurance will be used to launch a post-storm response plan to repair the damage.
- Region: Oceania | Australia
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
The Oyster Harbour Seagrass restoration project in Australia was initiated in November 1994 and finished in January 2006, which encompassed five planting events of the seagrass. Twenty-five years after the first tentative pilot restoration, widescale recovery is apparent in aerial photographs.
- Region: Africa | Zimbabwe
- Societal Challenge: Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Grants
- Source: Blended
Project CAMPFIRE was introduced in 1989 with the aim to conserve wildlife; this, by allowing farmers and communities to economically benefit from ecotourism and safari hunting. The project contributed to an increased number of several species, elephants being one of them.
- Region: Southeast Asia | Indonesia
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Grants
- Source: Private
As one of Indonesia's largest ecosystem restoration projects, Restorasi Ekosistem Riau (RER), a private-public collaborative project, aims to restore and conserve peat forest areas on Indonesia’s Kampar Peninsula. Through a 60-year ecosystem restoration license, granted by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, 150 thousand ha of forest have been restored since its establishment in 2013. 689 megatonnes of carbon stock were documented on 70% of their forest area and the livelihood of a 17,000-strong community inspired and improved.
- Region: Asia | India
- Societal Challenge: Water Security; Human Health
- Financial Instrument: National Budget Allocation
- Source: Public
The main objective of the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) launched in 1985 (but currently inactive), is to raise the river water quality from heavily polluted to ‘bathing standard’, which is to be achieved by introducing sanitation projects, river-front development and diversion of sewage. Water quality modelling demonstrated that the project during its active years improved water quality in all areas. Studies have estimated that reviving the entire Ganga river would bring about vast positive impact.
- Region: Africa | Seychelles
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Food Security; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Public
With the help of the World Bank, the Government of Seychelles issued the word's first Blue Bond in 2018. A financing package consisting of USD 15 million of private-sector capital was put together to support projects aimed at improving the ocean economy, by providing grants and loans issued by the Blue Grants Fund and Blue Investment Fund. Since 2018, over 17 projects have been provided with grants.
- Region: Africa | Kenya
- Societal Challenge: Economic and Social Development; Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Grants
- Source: Private
The Mikoko Pamoja (MP) project in Gazi Bay, Kenya, was set up in 2012 and approved in 2013 by the Plan Vivo Foundation, and is the first community run project to trade mangrove-derived carbon certificates on the voluntary market.
- Region: Southeast Asia | Indonesia
- Societal Challenge: Climate Change; Economic and Social Development
- Financial Instrument: Debt
- Source: Blended
The Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility is a multi-stakeholder partnership founded by UNEP, World Agroforestry Centre, BNP Paribas and ADM Capital. The facility aims to, through mobilizing international capital at scale, bring long-term finance to initiatives that promote sustainable practices within Indonesia's agriculture and renewable energy sectors. In 2018, TLFF issued South East Asia's first Corporate Sustainability Bond, financing sustainable natural rubber plantations.
- Region: Asia | Pakistan
- Societal Challenge: Economic and Social Development; Climate Change
- Financial Instrument: Equity; Debt
- Source: Private
In 2017, Zephyr Power Limited began the construction of a 50MW wind power project consisting of 25 wind turbines on the Indus River Delta. The project also helps restore the surrounding area's degraded mangrove ecosystem, which in turns protects the wind farm by acting as a buffer against future floodings. With the support of the government, the project also helps raise awareness among local communities of the value of mangrove protection.