Financial Mechanisms for Landscape Investment: Synergies to Increase Returns, Reduce Risk and Enhance Impact
Around the world, climate change and the degradation of land, water and ecosystem health are threatening social well-being and economy. Innovations to reverse these trends and foster a regenerative economy are emerging, including in the investment and finance communities. Yet current efforts remain fragmented, modest in size, and weakly aligned with local needs and priorities.
While new financial flows toward regenerative agriculture, forestry, watershed management, climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation are growing rapidly, much larger financial flows that accelerate degradation undermine their impact. Financiers complain of a weak pipeline of investable projects, difficulties in achieving transformation impacts at scale, complex measurement of environmental and social impacts, high risks and inadequate support from public institutions.
Integrated landscape finance is one response to this challenge. Integrated landscape finance is an approach and set of tools that encourage synergies between investments to generate impacts on multiple objectives at landscape scale. The approach emerges from the rapidly growing movement of locally led, multi-stakeholder partnerships that collaboratively manage their landscapes to regenerate nature, adapt to and mitigate climate change and support their communities’ social and economic development. They employ integrated landscape finance to mobilize financial resources of all kinds at speed and scale to reach their goals while minimizing risks for investors.
This three-part interactive series on integrated landscape finance for financial leaders will engage experts and explore the many challenges and opportunities of investing at a landscape scale. Partners from landscapes will share their experiences and challenges in building a portfolio of enabling and asset investments, developing an infrastructure for finance planning and working with finance actors in their landscape.
During the first dialogue (February 22, 2023) of the series, partners from landscapes will share their experience and challenges in building a landscape portfolio of enabling and asset investments, developing an infrastructure for finance planning and working with finance actors in their landscape. The second dialogue (April 26, 2023), will focus on innovative models and mechanisms for integrated landscape investment. During the third dialogue (June 2023), participants will examine the current finance system and discuss gaps and opportunities to strengthen landscape-wide investments.
1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People (1000L), the IKEA Foundation and the Laudes Foundation are convening the dialogues. 1000L partners EcoAgriculture Partners, EIT Climate-KIC, Regenerative Development Group, Rainforest Alliance and Commonland are co-organizing the events.
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Dialogue 1
Investing in Landscapes: A Challenge for Finance Innovation, A Wealth of Opportunity
February 22, 2023, 10-11:30 AM ET
During this dialogue, experienced landscape partnerships will share their experience and challenges in building a landscape portfolio of enabling and asset investments, developing an infrastructure for finance planning and working with finance actors in their landscape. Leaders from banks, bilateral and multilateral development funding agencies, companies, private impact investors, philanthropic foundations and landscape finance developers will then discuss learnings and strategies to maximize the impact of their investments, including through new connections among financial actors, in a moderated discussion.
Dialogue Resources:
- Dialogue agenda
- Speaker and moderator information
- Introduction to Landscape Finance
- Landscape Partnership Finance Portfolios
Dialogue 2
Financial Mechanisms for Landscape Investment: Synergies to Increase Returns, Reduce Risks and Enhance Impacts
April 26, 2023, 10-11:30 AM ET
The second dialogue will focus on models and mechanisms for funding landscape investment portfolios, including commercial and non-commercial projects. Innovative case examples will be shared, highlighting the roles of different actors in the finance system. They will address a variety of topics, including risk-return profiles of common investment types, risk mitigation and integrated finance mechanisms. Speakers will also highlight key features of these mechanisms as well as how they can better align with landscape strategies and capture economic, social and ecological synergies among projects. Participants will discuss these topics further in a moderated discussion.
Dialogue 3
Filling the Gaps in Finance for Landscape Investment: New Strategies for Collaboration among Investors and Funders
June 2023, 10-11:30 AM ET
During this dialogue, experts will discuss the landscape finance system as a whole, as well as gaps and opportunities to strengthen the system to benefit landscape-scale regeneration. Participants will examine the key components for scaling integrated landscape finance. Topics will include an overview of existing and potential financial flows for landscape regeneration, public finance coordination, landscape business incubation models and current initiatives contributing to landscape finance.
Organizer
The IKEA Foundation is committed to tackling some of the root causes of inequality: poverty, the consequences of climate change, and lack of resources such as clean air, energy and fertile land. Families need both financial stability and a healthy environment if they and their children are to thrive. Improving livelihoods and protecting the planet are inseparable.
Through grantmaking, the foundation works with partners to help people and communities with the fewest resources build livelihoods and support their families. Beyond grantmaking, it’s also important that different perspectives and pathways are represented and understood. We are committed to amplifying the voices of partners and local communities to ensure a fair, inclusive and balanced debate around each of the areas where we operate: rural livelihoods, refugee livelihoods, employment and entrepreneurship, access to renewable energy, and climate action.
Launched in 2020, Laudes Foundation challenges and inspires industry to harness its power for good. Founded by the Brenninkmeijer family business owners, the foundation builds on six generations of entrepreneurship and philanthropy and work alongside a wider network of philanthropic organisations.
Although independent from these organisations, the foundation is in a unique position to learn from each of them. In particular, Laudes Foundation is advancing the industry-changing work of C&A Foundation, and is building on the experience of its flagship initiative Fashion for Good by continuing its fashion work and expanding its scope to include other industries.
1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People (1000L) is a radical collaboration of change agents working together to accelerate landscape efforts to sustain and restore ecosystems, build rural prosperity and confront climate change.
1000L is convened by EcoAgriculture Partners, and co-led with Rainforest Alliance, Commonland, Conservation International, the United Nations Development Programme, Landscape Finance Lab, and information technology leader Tech Matters. Another 20+ partners are sharing technical and financial expertise, and 12+ Landscape Partnerships are co-designing the initiative.