A UK state visit to France aiming to cement climate collaboration between the two countries has resulted in a series of nature-based investments from retail companies, investment houses, and not-for-profits.
Britain’s monarch King Charles and France’s president Emmanuel Macron heard from business leaders and organisations on their actions to address climate change and nature loss at the “Climate Mobilisation Forum”, which saw a series of financial announcements made on Thursday.
The state visit signals ongoing collaboration between the two countries that previously held a joint summit on a new global financing pact in June, where they aimed to promote more funding for nature restoration.
The UK and France previously announced a joint roadmap to create an international advisory panel on biodiversity credits, chaired by Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and a former deputy governor of France’s central bank.
Thursday’s event was convened by five ministers with remits covering education, ecological and energy transition, biodiversity, and rural affairs.
The announcements made at the summit include:
- Ardian, a French private investment house, and aDryada, a French biodiversity operator, launched the Averrhoa Nature-Based Solutions Fund to invest €1.5 bln in a portfolio of around 15 diversified projects of reforestation, afforestation, restoration of mangroves, and wetlands.
- Amundi will join Nature Action 100, a global investor coalition aiming to foster action on natural capital, building on the success of Climate Action 100. Amundi already launched two thematic funds linked to biodiversity, one on the blue economy and another on the circular economy, with a third dedicated biodiversity fund to be announced in the coming months.
- AXA, Unilever, and Tikehau Capital invested €120 mln in Biobest, which helps farmers derisk their transition to regenerative agriculture, its first investment from its created €1 bln private equity impact investment fund created in 2022.
- Separately, Tikehau Capital announced its €1 bln private equity impact strategy dedicated to regenerative agriculture.
- UK-based not-for-profit Cool Earth will roll out unconditional cash grants to 2,000 households in the Peruvian Amazon, aiming to boost the incomes of those people managing 290,000 hectares of forest.
- Retail product company Kering announced €2 mln from its €140 mln Climate Fund for Nature to be provided to its first project to protect primary forests in Peru. The company will also renew its funding for the Museum of Natural History to continue its work on biodiversity certificates, which establish a science-based methodology for voluntary biodiversity credits.
- Another luxury retail company, LVMH will join the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance (CBA) as a “founder member”. The CBA was established in 2020 by King Charles III to create living labs to develop approaches for landscape restoration and value chain creation.
- Investment firm Mirova invested €8.5 mln in Pamoja, a company specialising in advancing agroforestry systems in East Africa from its Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) fund.
- Safaricom, a Kenyan telecom operator, will invest KES15-20 bln (€96-128 mln) to roll out more energy-efficient broadband connections.
By Tom Woolnough – tom@carbon-pulse.com
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