Kering, L’Occitane Group launch Climate Fund for Nature
Image credit: Kering
Earlier this month, at
COP15 in Montréal,
luxury fashion group Kering and premium and
sustainable cosmetics company L’Occitane Group
launched their joint Climate Fund for Nature — an ambitious effort to
mobilize resources from the luxury fashion and beauty sectors to protect and
restore nature, with a particular focus on women’s empowerment. €140M are
already committed out of a €300M target size; and the fund will be open to new
partner companies to support the scaling up of its impacts on the ground. The
fund will be managed by sustainable equity firm
Mirova.
“We are proud to work with Kering, L’Occitane Group and more corporates to
accelerate the mobilization of resources for nature-based solutions to climate
change and women’s empowerment,” said Anne-Laurence
Roucher, Deputy CEO and
Head of Natural Capital and Private Equity at Mirova. “A net-zero and
nature-positive economy requires huge amounts of capital; and the ambitious
contribution of corporates is essential to achieve this transition.”
With a fresh spotlight on the critical role of biodiversity in the health of the
planet, climate and economy, countries and companies are stepping up their
commitments to fight the biodiversity crisis; so, the need to scale-up finance
and investment in nature-based solutions is now acknowledged as critical.
Looking to the future, if the world is to meet its climate change, biodiversity,
and land-regeneration targets, investment in nature-based solutions should at
least triple by 2030 and increase four-fold by 2050, according to the UN’s
State of Finance for Nature
report.
This acceleration would equate to cumulative total investment of up to US$10
trillion, and a future annual investment rate of US$674 billion.
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“The Climate Fund for Nature provides an opportunity for the luxury fashion and
beauty sectors to collectively support biodiversity restoration and conservation
at scale,” explained Marie-Claire
Daveu, Chief Sustainability
and Institutional Affairs Officer at Kering, which has committed to having a
net-positive impact on biodiversity by
2025.
“Kering is proud to collaborate with Mirova; and we welcome the fund’s first
partner, L’Occitane Group. Innovative financing mechanisms are crucial to
channel much-needed investment into nature-based solutions if we are to reverse
biodiversity decline by 2030 and, simultaneously, address climate change, which
is intrinsically interlinked with nature. We entreat further companies to join
this ambitious initiative to contribute to a nature-positive future.”
The Climate Fund for Nature will start operations as of Q1 2023. With the
objective of supporting high-quality projects dedicated to nature protection and
restoration, the fund will also support farmers in their transition to
regenerative
practices;
deliver carbon
credits;
and generate co-benefits for communities, with a specific emphasis on women’s
empowerment. Eligible projects will mostly take place in countries where the
Kering and L’Occitane Group brands source their core raw materials. The
projects’ progress will be
monitored
to ensure they deliver measurable outcomes for nature, climate and livelihoods.
The projects supported will also be required to significantly contribute to
women’s
empowerment
by addressing existing gaps related to access to finance, land and training. To
that end, the fund and Mirova will collaborate with 2X
Collaborative — a global industry body for
gender-lens investing.
“With our planet facing a global climate and biodiversity crisis never witnessed
before, L’Occitane Group is proud to join forces with Kering and Mirova to
scale-up its action against the degradation of nature, which provides the very
resources and services we rely on,” said Adrien
Geiger, Managing Director
of L’Occitane en Provence and Chief Sustainability Officer of L’Occitane Group —
which launched a ‘nature-positive’ biodiversity
strategy
in 2021. “While reducing our emissions and impacts is our priority, the Climate
Fund for Nature will help us go further by supporting projects that encourage
regenerative practices, benefiting both nature and communities.”
HSBC-backed Natural Capital Investment Fund raises $650M for nature-based climate solutions
Image credit: Tim Mossholder
Meanwhile, Climate Asset Management —
the dedicated natural-capital investment manager formed as a joint venture
between HSBC Asset Management and climate change investment and advisory
firm Pollination — has achieved commitments of
more than US$650 million across its two Natural Capital strategies.
Commitments have been raised from a geographically diverse range of global
financial institutions and corporations from Europe, the US,
Asia-Pacific and the UK — with HSBC acting as anchor investor for both
strategies. This investor mix underlines the increasing awareness of the
benefits an investment into this important asset class can deliver to a range of
institutional investors, including insurers and corporates with net-zero/carbon-neutral targets.
The two investment strategies are particularly relevant given the recent
inclusion of nature-based solutions for the first time in the cover text at
COP27
and the focus on financing for biodiversity and biodiversity credits at COP15.
Respectively, they offer investors the choice of investing in
nature
for a financial return or to receive high-quality carbon
credits.
The Natural Capital Strategy (NCS) aims to deliver long-term financial
returns alongside improved environmental outcomes from regenerative landscape
management in
agriculture,
forestry and other environmental
assets.
To support the deployment of capital committed, NCS has developed a pipeline of
natural capital investment opportunities — building on an initial investment
into a land-development project in Extremadura, Spain. The project aims to
transform 400 hectares of traditionally flood-irrigated farmland to
regenerative, high-value almond production — with specific areas allocated
towards enhanced biodiversity.
The Nature-Based Carbon Strategy (NBCS) targets landscape restoration in
developing economies to deliver biodiversity improvements at scale for climate
resilience, community benefits and high-quality carbon credits with a view to
enabling global corporations to achieve their decarbonization targets.
NBCS finances nature-based carbon
projects,
particularly in their early stage of development, while looking to ensure that
meaningful benefits flow to the local communities. Its first publicly announced
investment, the Restore Africa
Programme,
is a key example of this. Led by the Global EverGreening Alliance, the
Programme aims to restore nearly two million hectares of land and directly
support 1.5 million smallholder farming families across six African countries —
Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. It
has already progressed to implementation in three of those countries (Uganda,
Kenya and Malawi) in less than 12 months after the collaboration between Climate
Asset Management and Global EverGreening Alliance was first announced at COP26.
NBCS will continue to scale this traction with the commitments announced today.
The commitments to date and the ongoing capital raising demonstrate Climate
Asset Management’s continued contribution to the goals of the Natural Capital
Investment
Alliance,
of which Climate Asset Management is a founding member.
Christof Kutscher, CEO of Climate Asset Management, commented: “We are
delighted to have secured these commitments from a diverse, global institutional
investor base for our Natural Capital and Nature-Based Carbon strategies. Both
investment strategies are grounded in nature-based assets; and we find they are
increasingly attractive to forward-thinking organizations that are themselves
committed to the transition to net zero. The commitments will help us to support
bold and scalable nature-based investment solutions as we strive to secure a
more climate-resilient, nature-positive and inclusive world.”
Climate Asset Management continues to raise funds across both strategies and
expects to make further announcements during 2023.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Dec 30, 2022 7am EST / 4am PST / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET