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Turning rainforests into tangible ESG assets
CategoriesSustainable News

Turning rainforests into tangible ESG assets

By Zarkon Group,
Turning rainforests into tangible ESG assets

Spotted: Since 1947, the total area of tropical rainforests has been reduced by more than half, with around 100 acres of rainforest cleared every minute for agricultural and industrial development. Now, one organisation – Forestbase – has an idea about how to significantly slow this process by valuing forest land much higher.

Forestbase founder and CEO Kjell Clarysse points out that most forest land is priced so low that it is the main driver for deforestation, with buyers able to make high profits turning the forest land into timber, mining, agriculture, or tourism. Instead, Clarysse suggests moving conservation away from a donation basis and into financial markets as an infrastructure asset.

First, Forestbase buys tropical forest land when it becomes available, outbidding extractive and environmentally damaging industries. Then, in collaboration with local communities, Forestbase establishes a conservation plan that is mutually beneficial for locals and the land.

In order for the bought land to be turned into a formal infrastructure asset, Forestbase built its own legal assessment tool, the Land Tenure Stability Index (LTSI). The company then sets up special purpose vehicles (SPVs) for the land it buys. Investors can buy shares of the SPV, which equates to the number of hectares of land purchased, and this asset can be used to meet environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. Because the ownership of the land has been fractionalised and spread over multiple land titles, it de-risks the purchase for investors and makes the assets easier to trade.

By turning hectares of rainforest into tangible assets, Forestbase brings the price of the land much closer to its intrinsic worth, taking into account the value of the biodiverse ecosystem that exists in one block of land. The ultimate goal is to drive up the price of rainforest to the point where it is more profitable to trade it than to exploit it. As Clarysse summarises, the company is “re-calibrating the position of nature in our financial system”.

Forestbase is currently focusing on increasing its asset financing capacity.  

A variety of novel financial products and markets are working to improve sustainability. In the archive, Springwise has spotted CO2 insurance products and fossil fuel-free funds.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

A platform overcoming the ESG data gap in real estate
CategoriesSustainable News

A platform overcoming the ESG data gap in real estate

By Zarkon Group,
A platform overcoming the ESG data gap in real estate

Spotted: Real estate is responsible for around 40 per cent of total global emissions, with around 28 per cent of that total generated by existing buildings. But the question of how to ensure that any modernisation is sustainable and meets environmental, social, and governance (ESG) requirements is not an easy one to answer. This is what startup Predium aims to tackle, with its ESG software platform for the real estate industry.

The Munich-based company has developed a platform that provides building owners and managers with a comprehensive overview of the ESG status of the property. The platform collects information on energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and other building information from a wide variety of sources. Then, the system performs a precise profitability check of various modernisation measures.

The platform is designed to allow users to prioritise the measures that best meet ESG benchmarks and cost savings, while allowing them to track implementation. Predium also supports reporting of any measure taken, and their effects, to investors, boards, and regulators.

Founded in 2021, Predium raised €1.6 million last year in a seed funding round, and has been growing fast since. 

Improving the efficiency of the built environment is crucial to reaching net zero. Luckily, there are no shortage of ideas on how to achieve this. Take a look at our archive for some that Springwise has spotted, including environmentally friendly concrete and wood-based, fossil fuel-free insulation.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

A platform helps companies track ESG, CSR, and sustainability in one place 
CategoriesSustainable News

A platform helps companies track ESG, CSR, and sustainability in one place 

By Zarkon Group,
A platform helps companies track ESG, CSR, and sustainability in one place 

Spotted: With research showing that corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are frequently withdrawn during times of economic uncertainty, the full picture of the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is still developing. Many environmental advocates hoped that the sudden drop in global emissions would become the new norm, but the opposite happened. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that global emissions rebounded to their highest level in history in 2021. Part of that was a rebound in airline travel and a steep increase in transport by car.  

In light of the corporate struggle to do what is best for the planet, Spanish software company APlanet created a single, customisable dashboard for companies to track their environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures in one place. Whatever a business is doing to protect the global health of the planet, and wherever that occurs in the supply chain, the APlanet platform tracks it.

A company sets up the categories that it wants to track, which can include global standards as well as internal, local, or regional measures. APlanet helps identify data inputs and builds a bespoke dashboard. Companies can assign owners to different data sets and, when needed, easily create holistic performance reports for the entire organisation.

The detailed analysis provided by APlanet helps operational managers track efficiencies and a range of measures across multiple locations, including gender equality, emissions, energy usage, recycling, water usage and more.

CSR and ESG are important to consumers, with much brand loyalty pegged to a company’s ethos. As organisations seek ways to bake sustainability into their very foundations, innovators are rising to the challenge with technologies such as a platform that verifies and tracks impact projects and a social media app that raises funding for sustainable brands and causes.  

Written By: Keely Khoury

Reference