$2.8 billion across 17 deals in climate ($2 billion), nature-based solutions ($225 million), hard to abate industries ($383 million), and blue economy $208 million.
$2.8 billion across 17 deals in climate ($2 billion), nature-based solutions ($225 million), hard to abate industries ($383 million), and blue economy $208 million.
Many of the presenting companies and funds can also be found on Capital for Climate’s comprehensive Nature-based Solutions Investment Platform nbs.capitalforclimate.com
The World Bank and the Vietnamese government have agreed on a project to support rice farmers to improve their practices to reduce methane emissions from rice cultivation. The project will aim to be carried out over 1 million hectares, with a price of $10 per carbon credit and a goal of decreasing carbon-equivalent emissions by 10 million metric tons a year, for an expected payment of $100 million a year.
Apple has announced the launch of its Restore Fund carbon removal initiative, which will make investments into forestry projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere and generate a financial return. The initiative was launched in partnership with Conservation International and Goldman Sachs, and aims to remove at least one million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually through nature-based solutions. Projects will be identified later in 2024.
Dendra systems, a restoration-focused climate tech company, has closed its series B round with a raise of $15.76 million, with the goal of accelerating its mission of advancing ecosystem restoration worldwide. The round was led by Zouk Capital, with significant participation from Aramco Ventures, and Airbus Ventures.The new capital will help expand the company's market scope and enhance its AI-enabled drone-based seeding technology offerings.
Oregon will provide $10 million for 25 ecosystem restoration projects through the PFA Grant Program, the first ever distribution under the project. The grants prioritize projects that improve stream and wetland conditions, and recover native fish populations.
Microsoft has announced an offtake deal of 3 million tons of carbon removal credits from re.green over the next 15 years, its second-nature based credit agreement in Brazil in 6 months. The projects will be registered with Verra. The companies have targeted the restoration of more than 16,000 hectares of degraded pasture land.
EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG has pledged to invest €40 billion ($43 billion) on renewables rollout and grid expansion by 2030. The investment will include the deployment of hydrogen power plants to support wind and solar power, and represents the company's largest ever investment.
Mubadala has laid out plans to invest $13.5 billion in biofuel production across Brazil over the next decade, split into five $2.7 billion modules. The first investment is due to begin production in 2026, and will include both the production of new facilities, the securing of agricultural supply chains, and the conversion of oil refineries into biofuel production facilities.
Brazil has announced a 18.3 billion Reais ($3.6 billion) investment in climate effect mitigation, led by the public sector with additional contributions from other sectors. $10.6 billion Reais will be invested in helping to renew public transit infrastructure to be lower carbon, while 10.7 billion Reais will be invested in erosion control.
HAS and KKE have announced an agreement to invest $2 billion in clean energy assets over the next 18 months through a new CarbonCount Holdings 1 LLC. Both companies have made a capital commitment of around $1 billion, and aim to seed 10% of assets by close. The program will focus primarily on renewable energy infrastructure.
Japan has pledged to contribute ¥ 160 billion ($1.04 billion) to the Asian Development Bank’s fund to support low-income nations’ climate adaptation and mitigation. The investment would provide one fifth of the ADB's pledge to replenish the fund with $5 billion.
Kenya is preparing for a late 2024 release of a $500 billion sustainability-linked bond, the country's first. The issuance would be done under the country's recently finalized green bond framework, and would make it the first sovereign SLB issue in Africa.
Turk Telecom is preparing for a $500 million sustainability bond raise, the first for a Turkish telecom firm. The final transaction size is still to be approved.
Triodos Investment Management and Fondaction Asset Management are partnering on developing a platform for hosting natural capital-related institutional funds, starting with hundreds of millions of dollars of asset management. The Triodos Fondaction platform aims to promote fund formation and develop a robust knowledge base to support the group.
EnCap has closed its Energy Transition Fund II (ETF II) which focuses on decarbonization within the power industry, low-carbon fuel, and carbon management. The fund aims to build a portfolio of 8-10 companies, with investments already made in BildmoreRenewables, Linea Energy, Parliament Solar, Power Transitions, and Arbor Renewable Gas.
Matrix Renewables, a Spanish-American renewables platform, has sectured €300 million ($322.4 million) In corporate debt financing from Santander Corporate Investment & Banking. The funds will be dedicated to the construction of the company's advanced development portfolio across its existing markets, including Spain, Italy, Chile and the U.S.
North Yorkshire Council Pension fund has committed £200 million ($251 million) to environmentally sustainable investments as part of a broader shift towards green initiatives. The investment was made in the Border to Coast Partnership Climate Opportunities Fund, with portfolio investments including clean energy, infrastructure, new technologies and carbon capture.
Hysata, an Australian green hydrogen start-up, has raised $111.3 million in its Series B round, including $10 million from BP. The company plans to use the funding to expand the production of its electrolyser and further develop the underlying technology behind its products.
Meati, a Colorado-based food tech startup has closed a $100 million series C1 funding round, the largest investment in an alternative protein company since 2022. The funding is expected to be used to accelerate retail expansion, and represents a large investment after a falloff in alternative protein investment in the past few years.
Electric hydrogen has announced a $100 million corporate credit financing agreement to support the manufacturing and development of their 100MW electrolyzer plants. The funding round was led by HSBC with participation from J.P Morgan, Stifel Bank, and Hercules Capital. The investment comes on the heels of $65 million in DOE support and $50 million in equipment financing from Trinity Capital.
Starshot Capital has announced the launch of its Starshot Fund I, a $35 million fund focused on companies with ambitious decarbonization goals across the industrial, manufacturing, food & agriculture, built environment, materials and chemicals sectors. The fund hopes to back companies with the potential of eliminating a cumulative 1 gigaton of emissions by 2050 while bringing in competitive returns.
Arkea Bio, an ag-biotech startup that uses vaccines to reduce livestock methane emissions, announced a $26.5 million Series A close. The raise was led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and the funds will be used to further develop and scale the production of the company's vaccine technology.
The Midwest Nuclear DAC hub has received the $4 million award previously announced by the U.S DOE. The projects will enable early stage efforts to explore site feasibility and the deployment of at-scale DAC technology. The project is led by Northwestern University and will explore the feasibility of using nuclear power to fuel direct air capture technology.
The U.S DOE has awarded $5 million to Avium to help the company develop its hydrogen electrolyzer stack. The company aims to further develop its alkaline electrolyzer technology with the goal of meeting the DOE performance goal of 2 A/cm^2 at <=1.7V.
A university of Las Vegas team has been given a $2.1 million award from the U.S DOE to develop improved, low-carbon furnaces. The team will work to scale and complete the technology over the next 3 years.
Microsoft has signed a 10-year offtake agreement for 3.3 million tonnes of carbon removal certificates from a bio-energy carbon capture and storage plant with Stockholm Exergi. The companies believe it is the world's largest-ever engineered carbon removal deal to date. Stockholm Exergi aims to begin construction of the BECCS plant in 2025, which will use wood residue to generate power and capture flue gas, compress it into liquid form and store it.
Ocean 14 Capital, an ocean-focused private equity fund, has raised € 201 million ($208 million) for its impact fund Ocean 14 Capital Fund 1. The fund invests in late-stage venture and early-stage growth companies with solutions across 5 verticals, including sustainable aquaculture, alternative protein, sustainable fisheries, marine flora, and circular plastics.
The Galapagos islands and the Charles Darwin foundation have signed a 16-year partnership for an undisclosed amount through the Oceans Finance Company to help the region conserve its oceanic ecosystem and manage natural capital while generating investor return. The initial focus of the project will be marine biodiversity research, marine bird and sea turtle conservation, and insular reforestation.
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A draft revision of China's mineral resources law includes a chapter mandating ecological restoration of mining areas, a significant step if passed into law. The law would mandate mining companies to prepare restoration plans before beginning mining, though it would not require whole supply chain due diligence.
More than 200 US Tribes, as well as the territories of American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S Virgin Islands, and Guam, have published climate action plans with support from the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program, increasing the subnational coverage under the program. The plans lay the groundwork for the second page of the CPRG program, in which Tribes and territories will be able to apply for the $4.3 billion general and $300 million Tribeand territory competition for additional grants to support their decarbonization and resilience goals.
The provisions of the EU's Regulation on EU green bonds are being slowly rolled out and will be enforced in full in December of 2024, applying guidelines for all green bonds issued within the EU. This article by Engage provides an overview of the current landscape of rollout, and the expectations for compliance when the Regulation comes into force at the end of the year.
The Canadian Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change has rolled out an updated Improved Forest Management protocol for inclusion in the country's Greenhouse Gas Offset Credit Systems. The protocol is applicable to privately managed land, and will be joined by a public land IFM protocol being developed in 2024.
The World bank Recipe for a Livable Planet report finds that middle-income countries hold 75% of all climate mitigation opportunities. The report provides mitigation pathways for high-, middle-, and low-income countries related to agriculture emissions, and found that MICs accounted for 67.8% of agrifood emissions, compared to 21.2% for high-income countries, and 11% from low-income countries.
Renewable energy has accounted for 30% of the world's electricity generation for the first time, according to a new report from Ember. Solar was the main provider of growth, generating twice as much new electricity as coal.
An FT investigation has found a major discrepancy between carbon credits registered by Shell under an Albertan provincial scheme and the actual volume of carbon emissions avoided at its Quest carbon capture facility between 2015 and 2021. The scheme allowed Shell to register 5.7 million credits that had no corresponding reductions.
A new report from PitchBook finds that climate tech startups raised $8.1 billion in the first quarter of 2024, up 400% from the final quarter of 2023, though count has fallen slightly to 244. Three large early-stage firms made up the bulk of deals, with Climate Capital executing 94, Lowercarbon Capital 70 and SOSV 59.
The IEA's Advanced Clean Technology Manufacturing analysis finds that global investment in manufacturing of solar, PV, wind, batteries, electrolyser and heat pump technology rose to $200 billion in 2023, an increase of 70% from 2022, representing 4% of global GDP growth. Spending on solar PV manufacturing more than doubled, while battery manufacturing investment rose 60%, among other findings.
Scor has launched a new insurance project tailored to ecological restoration, with the goal of helping to de-risk investment in restoration projects. The initiative is part of the company's larger nature restoration initiative NatReCo.
The state of California has released 10-year figures from the state's Cap-and-Trade Program, indicating that the Program is expected to reduce 109 million metric tons of GHG emissions, equivalent to 80% of the state's combustion vehicles, and has invested $11 billion in climate mitigation projects, with $17 billion earmarked for coming years.
A new Michigan State University study finds that reforestation carbon capture models may have overcounted the mitigation potential of reforestation projects. Specifically, the study found that on intensely managed forests, landowners could exaggerate their carbon sequestration by a factor of 2.76, due to not taking into account the afterlife of harvested wood.
A new paper in Current Biology examines the potential for trophic rewilding to help restore ecosystems under changing climate conditions. The study focuses on the impact of large mammals on ecosystems, and their potential for improving across the board biodiversity and ecological function metrics.
A new study by the University of Plymouth has found that increased rainfall in UK forests can lower the survival rates of seedlings, potentially harming reforestation efforts and limiting carbon uptake potential.
The IUCN Oil Crops Taskforce has released a new report on the environmental and climate impact of vegetable oil production. The research lays out policy options for improving yield and empowering smallholders while mitigating climate and environmental impact.
Capital for Climate, along with its partner, Nature4Climate, released a first-of-its-kind landscape analysis of the nature tech market. This report illuminates a burgeoning sector that will help protect, manage, and restore nature.
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