Hi, I'm Helen Avery with the Green Finance Institute and
you're listening to Financing Nature.
This week I'm joined by Mike Azrust, Co Founder and Chief
Executive Director, El Estari Capital, to hear about the Rimba
Collective. If you are going to speak to the
CFO, to be honest, I think in many ways that is the most
important person right in to to persuade because they will not
come from this world and being able to articulate the business
case to them is, is really the most fundamental.
And I think that does come from supply chain resilience and
supply chain security, right? And really demonstrating how
does that natural capital achieve that.
Good afternoon or whatever time it is for you and thank you for
joining us for this Episode 4 in our special Revenues for Nature
series. And we are leaving the oceans
behind us today and spending the next few weeks looking at land.
Today, we're still sticking with this collective action theme
we've explored before with the responsible commodities facility
and the Fisheries Improvement Fund.
And this week, Mike's Rust at Lestory Capital is going to walk
us through the Rimba Collective. That's a forest conservation and
St Petland actually and restoration financing mechanism
that started in Southeast Asia, where payments into these
projects are linked to companies procurement of palm oil.
And then members of the collective can claim for their
sustainability commitments for the projects from their verified
outcomes. And Mike is just brilliant and
I'm really excited you're going to get to hear not only what
they're doing and all the lessons they've learned about
how to move supply and demand together, but really he's
broader thinking about this nut we're trying to crack around
private sector investment into nature restoration.
And he'll also touch on the role of biodiversity credits.
So lots to lots to talk about today.
Mike, thank you so much for being with us today on financing
Nature and how are you, first of all?
Very well, thank you and and great to be here.
So we're going to. Sort of get down into the Rimba
Collective in particular today and really understand how that's
mobilising private sector investment, what the work has
been to date. And I know you've got plans to
scale and replicate and we'll talk about that too.
But first I wondered if you could.
So it's set up by Lestari Capital.
So I wonder if you can give us a bit of a background on Lestari
Capital first as a Co founder? Sure.
So we, we started actually as a as a concept in 2015 already
where we were in a sort of a very different world I think
when it comes to sort of natural capital finance with even even
the carbon markets at that time. And so certainly nature finance
was really in very, very early stages.
And really the sort of the reason for being full of starry
capital is to leverage market based demand for conservation
and for restoration in order to move us away from grant
financing and short term financing philanthropy in terms
of driving money into conservation and achieving
global climates and nature targets.
And so we set ourselves up and, and had some really kind of
forward thinking companies that, you know, helped us identify the
the potentials of models about how we could work.
And we were seeded by partnerships Forest, which is
under the UK aid, really with the purpose of becoming a
company that can demonstrate that there is revenue to be made
from nature conservation rather than nature exploitation.
And so I think that's really the sort of being the driving ethos
of of how we started and really sort of the idea of working with
sort of forward thinking companies that want to explore
new models, not only to, you know, finance, conservation and
restoration and achieve impact on the ground.
But how does that actually links to corporate business cases And
how does that actually drive value for the companies is is
really sort of where where we are at.
And I think that's the sort of the edge of the development of
where we want to be because that is really something that is a
really tough nut to crack and understanding really, you know,
how does nature get valued on the on the balance sheet?
How do shareholders view natural capital as a, as a value
generation rather than, you know, something that is, that is
nice to have. But of course, a lot of this
doesn't actually exist. I mean in terms of working to
actually develop systems in place or leveraging systems to,
to actually make this happen is really quite difficult and it
requires a lot of innovation where it is sort of overused and
I hesitate almost to use it. But we need to develop new
mechanisms of how to actually do this.
How do we link natural capital into shareholder value?
But then if that demand is there and we can to structure that
demand for protection and restoration of natural capital,
how do we then actually build the systems around being able to
raise the money, manage the money and then deploy the money
to the ground? And so Lustari works, yes, with
the corporates on kind of structuring the demand side, but
we also work on actually conceptualising and creating the
financial models that are managing the finance over the
long term and also deploying the finance to the ground.
And so our companies, we're headquartered in Singapore.
We have two large offices in Indonesia.
We also have an office in in Malaysia.
And we have people from everywhere from the UK to France
to India and, and also to Australia.
But half of the company is actually focused on the project
side of the work that we do. So we identify the projects on
the ground, we do due diligence. We actually provide a lot of
Technical Support to the projects because really the
infrastructure around making this happen at scale isn't
really there. And so we have to be part of all
of these different aspects. You know, we're in it for the
long term and we, we finance the projects with the view of 25
years as a minimum. And so we're locked in really.
And you know, we tried to find a way of of making it work because
this is a marathon rather than a rather than a Sprint.
Yeah. So just to clarify, it's, I
mean, what I love about the model and the work you're doing
is you are building the supply, building the demand at the same
time looking at the model in terms of the financing, if it
needs upfront financing, how that needs to be constructed.
But also I know maybe we'll get to this later that you're
looking at. How does that all fit in and
feedback into like that bigger systems change we need so that
we're not just seeing one off projects which you know we might
be at risk of, of seeing through this sort of early grant
funding, demand and supply come together, it's done, but then
what next kind of thing? So I think I think you raised an
important point. You know, we need to be looking
at the demand and of course we need to be looking at the supply
as I mentioned. But I think this is also about
scale and, and long term sort of nature of, of the models that we
need. We obviously we, we're not
interested in CSR, we're not interested in one of grants.
So we're not interested in short termism because that's been the
status quo for for far too long and it hasn't really got us to a
place I think where we need to be.
So you, you know, understanding how the demand is able to
actually incorporate nature financing into procurement for
example or into operations is really important to us.
And so innovating around that and understanding exactly what
are the driving forces that create that sort of business
proposition is something that we work on very closely with our
corporate partners and and also by speaking with new corporates.
And you know, it is a little bit of kind of Co creation to be
honest. I don't think there is 100%, you
know, watertight regulation for example, that would say you must
put X amount of financing over X amount of time into nature
conservation. But there are many different
kind of trajectories of this and pulling those together and
understanding that and structuring it is, is really
important. The second part is obviously on
the project supply. I somewhat controversially say
that I think there is a real systemic issue in how nature
conservation is delivered. And I think it has been going on
for a really, really long time. And I think a lot of the
financing that has gone to major conservation over the past let's
say decade or two decades even longer really struggles to
demonstrate the impact of that that financing has actually had
on the ground and on the communities that are in, in
these areas which are incredibly valuable.
And so for us also, you know, supporting the projects in
professionalising effectively and is very important.
A lot of the projects haven't thought about budgets that are
over five years long simply because of the nature of
financing that they've received to date.
But also, you know, the mind shift that you need to create
that you know, this isn't a grant.
We are effectively purchasing an outcome from you.
You, you are effectively a business.
We are paying you to deliver an impact.
That conversation is really quite sometimes tricky to have
and, and, and it takes a lot of work to be able to kind of
explain that. But you know, we're driving
towards what we all want, right. We want with the communities to
preserve the ecosystem. We want with the project
operators or NGOs to deliver that impact.
And so how do we ensure that that product, if you want to
call it, you know, which is the impact in conservation and
restoration is actually fit for purpose that aligns with the
demand that you're generating. And so that requires really long
term thinking. And if you're trying to do
something at scale, the Rimba Collective is well over half
million hectares of contracted demand that we're basically
pulling into the portfolio over the next couple of years
further. So we we are about halfway
there. We, we're under about 300,000
hectares right now across 17 projects and and we're
effectively going to double that.
And if you're going to try to do something so impactful at such
scale and do it incredibly and robustly, it really requires not
just the demand and the financial systems in place, but
it also requires for the supply side to effectively restructure
itself somehow. And that's a long process.
Yeah. No, I hear you.
We've gone through. In.
A different part of GFI, something similar over the last
few years of and it was actually through government grant.
It was a what was called an investment readiness fund, which
was really designed to pay grants to help farmers and NGOs
who largely received grant funding and would have expected
to continue to see grant funding start to instead switch to
developing business cases where they would then be selling
outcomes to the private sector. And yeah, it takes a while to
make that shift and certainly a lot of support.
I feel like this is a very exciting conversation.
We've kind of jumped to the end of the page here, but can we
sort of backtrack? And for those listening who
don't know what Rimba Collective does, could you explain what it
does, how it was set up, how it works?
Yes, I mean, sorry about that. I think the the Remba Collective
is effectively an encapsulation of what we've just been talking
about, as you say, jumping to the end of the page.
So the Remba Collective, it's an impact sourcing mechanism.
And So what we have is we have a group of founding partners on
one side where the demand is structured, where the vision for
what it is that we're actually seeking to achieve is sort of
encapsulated. The financing which is linked to
procurement volumes is actually managed by the Remember
Collective, kind of a financial platform, which obviously has
its own governance. It has its own financial
platform, overview, audits, operating plan and so on.
And then that financing is then delivered into a portfolio which
is growing over time. Off projects.
We have 17 projects right now. Actually 15 of those projects
are community forest projects. Two of them are what I would
kind of consider really to be sort of a, a slight sort of Holy
Grail I think in, in terms of what we would like to achieve.
I think well, both of those kind of project typologies are really
important. One is that on the community
forest side is that we're actually able to show to the
communities that there is value in keeping the forest standing
and supporting development of alternative livelihoods and
generating obviously income, but generating employment in these
in these areas. Some of these areas are
effectively in the high deforestation risk zones of
production, right? So they are protecting the
supply chain from deforestation. They are creating greater
resilience in the supply chain, but really kind of being able to
say to communities, no, you have long term financing heading your
way and we will off take the impact that you're generating,
which until now has been seen as a, you know, as a nice to have.
The forest to them in many ways hasn't actually yielded value
other than from exploitation. The other project typology is
taking large concession areas that are slated for exploitation
and turning them into conservation and restoration.
And so those are the projects then that the Rimba Collective
platform is financing within the portfolio.
That portfolio on an annual basis gets verified and
validated and certified independently.
They generate the impacts that are then effectively retired in
the name of the Rimba Collective.
So retiring means that they really cannot be double counted
and the impacts are then proportionally provided to as
rights to claim to the corporates that are funding the
portfolio and the corporates themselves then utilise the
outcomes for a number of purposes.
The first one, actually the most important one I think for the
for the companies is to ensure that they are protecting their
supply chains through conservation and restoration in
supply shed areas, right? So that means protecting the
natural capital that the production is effectively
dependent on whether it's watershed protection, avoidance
of deforestation or restoration. And and of course all the
benefits that that demonstrates as well as you know, kind of
resilient communities in their sourcing land since all of this
protect the supply chain. And I think that's a matter of
thinking that the corporates are starting to understand.
But actually it is not just about the farm from which I'm
sourcing. It is about the supply chain
area that about sourcing landscapes more broadly that
actually that supply chain itself depends upon.
In addition to that, the portfolio generates validated
and certified impacts around hectares of conservation,
hectares of restoration, around climate reductions and removals,
around biodiversity and around livelihood.
And all of these actually then independently or as a bundled
kind of unit go against corporate sustainability
commitments. And so they're able to actually
utilise it against their own commitments around SPTISPTDNTNFD
And of course, as well. So the stakeholders require them
to to actually demonstrate the impact from these activities as
well as sort of more broadly sustainability commitments that
they themselves as a singular entity might have.
For example, a hectare of conservation.
A number of our founding partners, which are Unilever,
Procter and Gamble, Nestle and Pepsi have a hectare focused
commitment in terms of conservation and restoration.
So. Mike, I'm just going to
summarise here, which I know won't do justice to everything
you've just shared, But essentially companies including
Procter and Gamble and Unilever, like you mentioned, are making
payments over 30 years, depending on how much palm oil
they procure that go into an SPV That then distributes those
payments into projects that Lestari is sourcing that are
delivering environmental and social outcomes from peat and
forest restoration. So can you just sort of down?
As you know, that's that's a huge feat to have been able to
pull that supply and demand together and then set up the
structure that enables those payments and measuring all the
outcomes. I mean, how has the process
gone? I.
I have to say this is one of the most rewarding experiences I
think of, of, of my career, which is to sit with not just
forward thinking companies, but forward thinking individuals.
You know, we started with A2 pager and thought is this a good
idea? And you know, these guys said
yes. And so we said, all right, this
is going to take quite a bit of work.
It did take us almost 18 months and slowly we developed this and
so this kind of Co creation was a was a really rewarding
experience I've got. So many questions, but the first
one I suppose is staying on that point.
I mean, you talked about sort of supply chain resilience as being
one of the driving factors. And one of the things we see
often is, you know, a CSO says, yes, we love this idea of a
project and I'm all in for investing, but I need to get it
through my CFO. So what was that conversation
like in terms of was it very clear how this was going to then
impact positively or at least avoid losses on future growth
for these businesses? Well, I mean we started this in
2019 and so at that time I don't think that the business case was
100% clear. And I think things were changing
a lot. You know, we even in those days
we talked about potential pathways of how SBTI will
develop and, and what sort of factor of sort of business case
that was going to drive. We were discussing, you know, is
climate the primary focus of the portfolio or should it be
biodiversity? Should it be livelihoods?
You know, and we didn't really, to be honest, I think at that
time we didn't really know. We, we were working on the
assumption that what we were striving towards was that, you
know, was hectares of conservation and hectares of
restoration. I think that business case is
clarifying more and more and more partly because the also the
demands I think of the state stakeholders of the
shareholders, but also, you know, the requirements in terms
of regulation are all starting to sort of converge, right.
Whether it's the developments in the EU regulation, whether it's
sort of demands from from investors as well and the
alignment I think of how the sustainability commitments are
starting to take shape. And so there were many different
factors that were sort of narrowing this down.
I think if you are going to speak to the CFO, which I think
is the to be honest, I think in many ways that is the most
important person right in to to persuade because they will not
come from this world of sustainability and being able to
articulate the business case to them is, is really the most
fundamental. And I think that does come from
supply chain resilience and supply chain security, right?
And really demonstrating how does that natural capital
achieve that because shocked to supply chain sourcing, whether
it's because of reputational aspects, right?
And of which I think to be honest, those are, yes, they're
part of it, but they shouldn't be the main driver of it.
But supply chain resilience, you know, if there is deforestation
and there is fire and the crop burns down, which raises prices,
you know, you can put a monetary value around and say, well
actually if we put that money in, frankly if we put a fraction
of that money in into protecting that supply chain in the 1st
place, we would have achieved the goal at a much lower cost
and protected our supply chain from a lot of negative aspects
that are, you know, adjoining this and so.
This is an evolving case, of course, and you know, the EU
regulation is now kind of maybe being slightly delayed and maybe
it's going to be revived under the omnibus kind of laws and
directives and so on. But I think the trajectory is
relatively clear. And so this will become a more
important argument. The key here is to demonstrate
that actually the financing that you are putting in, he's
actually delivering that supply chain resilience and the
protection of the natural capital.
Because I imagine, and it's a conversation we're only just
starting to have really, but I think it's super relevant is, is
how does the financing start to get affected?
So for example, if you just say your Procter and Gamble will use
one of your corporates that you talked about, they're obviously
financing this investment into these projects through their own
balance sheet, which is probably drawing on a facility that they
have with a large commercial lender or perhaps it's through a
bond. I don't, I don't know.
And so to what extent can that feed into that process where
they may get preferred rates from a loan because of the
resilience that they're now delivering through this
investment? It feels like we're quite a long
way off making that final connection through to the
finance sector that will be financing those corporates in
turn do the investment. But am I wrong?
Are you seeing that already or do you see that's quite far, far
down the line? No, not at all.
And you know, there have been a lot of high profile cases
actually just recently, right, where shareholders have taken
action within companies. You know, there, there are
lawsuits, right, against companies that are seem not to
be taking enough action on climate, that are seem not to be
taking enough action on deforestation, for example,
right? It's just last year, I, I, I
heard that there were 800 different lawsuits against
corporates on either climate or nature already under way.
Now that to an investor is a red flag, of course, right?
And so, you know, they have also been really high profile cases
where because of environmental impact or potential
environmental impact, you know, even pension funds have actually
moved away from investing in certain companies and that
raises a real cost to the company.
If they're not then able to refinance their loans, if
they're not able to get loans at concessionary rates and so on,
as a result of this, then this is a huge cost to company.
So I think maybe the case isn't being made clearly enough, but
certainly this is already happening and there are already
examples of this, of this taking place.
And I and I do believe that actually the CF OS do see this
as well as the lawyers within the company.
They do see where that risk comes from and they do
understand that this is going to impact, you know, their
profitability. And as you said, not just
because of lawsuits, but also because of just being able to
operate business as usual in light of some of the activities
that are happening around their supply chain.
It'd be great to sort of understand.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but it's palm oil that Rimba
Collective kind of really started with in terms of, you
know, the commodity that you've been looking at.
Could you talk to a sort of why, why palm oil, although, you
know, it's, it's what everyone's been talking about for a while.
And then also your plans to look at other commodities as well,
which might be sort of involve different types of corporates?
Yes, I mean, you know, the palm oil link is there partly because
of my own, my own history. So after, you know, finishing
work in sort of nature conservation in various places,
I started working in sustainability of the palm oil
industry for the Zoological Society of London and then
continued over a longer period. And so I was really quite, you
know, heavily involved in round table and sustainable palm oil
and various working groups and in the development of the
compensation mechanism. And really it was sort of
understanding and, and having close relationships with the
companies and being able to speak to the, you know, sort of
off the record a little bit and, you know, better understanding
the people personally and, and understanding, OK, well, what is
it that you need? Right?
What, what do you see as the key challenges and rather than going
into it, you know, thinking up products or, or a solution, but
actually sort of coming at it from the problem side of things.
What is the problem that you're trying to solve for and not
being a consultancy effectively right where where we sort of
help them to think about the problem, but actually say no,
What we want to do is we want to partner with you to provide a
solution and to operate and deliver that solution right over
the long term. I think that was really the key.
The palm oil industry, you know, it has been hit very heavily for
the last 20 years and you know, partly as a result of that.
I think I do actually believe looking at lots of other
commodities and that they are actually quite advanced and sort
of understanding actually what are the problems, what are the
drivers. But also in terms of the
commitments that they have and the level of scrutiny that they
were basically under. All of this, you know, people
complained about at the at the time.
But I do actually think that it has got the sector and the
commodity to a better place. And so, you know, we started
focusing on palm oil and palm oil sourcing regions really to
identify #1 how do we allocate what should be kind of a
commensurate or what should be an, an equitable sort of country
financial contribution. But we had to start somewhere,
right? And because I think the, the
sector was advanced and because the companies were forward
thinking and there was a lot of focus on the, on the commodity,
we have the people around the table to, to really take this
further and, and to be ambitious, right.
And so really, you know, the project's portfolio is related
and it is within the supply basis of the palm oil kind of
growing region. But you know, over the years
we've, we've looked at other opportunities to actually
replicate this in, in other sectors, in other commodities.
And I and I believe actually, you know, if you are dependent
on a growing Agri commodity, especially in the global S,
actually the issues are relatively similar, right?
I mean, you know, this is about deforestation, it is about
nature degradation, it is about local communities and, and
livelihoods. And for most companies, you
know, where wish we could say this, you know, with, with data
on nature. But I think we can make the same
similar assumption that where your scope 3 is the largest
climate impact of most companies downstream, right?
And I, I would think that it would be exactly the same if we
were talking about nature. And so where you where you
really have to focus your energy and your efforts is really
around that sort of supplier area where the commodity is
coming from. Because frankly, in most cases,
you know, if we're talking about Brazil for soy, if we're talking
about, you know, palm oil in Indonesia, you know, that is
where the biodiversity still is. And that is where the standing
forests, which we so desperately need to protect are remaining.
And so if you want a bang for your buck, you know, that is
really kind of where you can achieve it.
And I'm not sure how much you can share, Mike, I know you have
got sort of some plans in the pipeline, but they might not be
public yet. Are there?
So that's a bit of a. Load of question, I suppose.
Are there other commodities that you're looking at?
Are there other regions that you're scaling up into?
We'd love to sort of know how you can, you know where you're
seeing replication scaling opportunity.
I mean, certainly what I can say is that we found the kind of the
collective model of the Rimba Collective highly scalable and
highly replicable. And so we we are looking at
other potential areas, other potential industries where we
can replicate the model. But we also understand that you
can't just take the model for one industry and fully replicate
it for another. So this does require still a lot
of Co creation, a lot of understanding what the different
sectors look like and what the other industries will look like,
what are their dependencies, where are their risks and what
is it that they're seeking to achieve.
So yes, we are. That's probably as much as I can
reveal right now. At the same time you know it is
going to be and I'm really looking forward to another
effort of Co creation and really working closely with the demand
side and understanding exactly what is needed and what scale
can be achieved, what ambition we can achieve.
And well, thank you. I know it's you have to be
suitably vague, but I know I'm sure at some point this year
we'll, we'll hear more about the specific industry that you might
be working with. Just before we let you go, I
think I'd love to circle back on to the impacts and measurement.
I think there's something we talk about quite a lot in this
podcast because people are very keen to understand or how are
you really measuring those outcomes.
So I wonder if you could just sort of share with us that and I
know you and I have spoken as well in the past about
potentially the role of biodiversity credit sort of
standards as being able to slot into being a standard from for
those outcomes as well. So when we talk, when we talk
about sort of the MRV frameworks, the, the, the
monitoring evaluation and learning frameworks that we
apply, we really would like preferably to use third party
standards which are accepted by the market and which are as as
far as possible aligned to what it is that we're actually
seeking to achieve. Like what is the demand required
from the monitoring, evaluation and reporting from the projects.
Unfortunately that isn't currently a standard out there
that would match perfectly exactly what it is that you
need. So what we do is we effectively
utilise kind of more, more market accepted third party
certification, which we then support the project portfolio
and the individual projects to war towards.
So we are actually kind of financing the projects at a very
early stage, which I think would be financing that the projects
would struggle to to get otherwise so that they
effectively become certified under these standards.
But we also add our own Mel framework on top of that and and
again, which is independently validated by by third parties.
The reason why we have to put that kind of additional
framework to it is because actually the outcomes that we're
seeking and that is needed on the demand side need to be
differently monitored and reported than is currently under
these particular certification standards.
So you know, really we are sort of, I would say we're sort of
agnostic in some ways as long as that has that market buy in, as
long as it's credible, as long as it's robust of course, but
we're relatively agnostic around what certification standards we
would put over the portfolio. Unfortunately, we're sort of
having to do a lot of this ourselves at the moment because
there isn't really anything fit for purpose out there.
You know, I, there's a lot of talk about biodiversity credits
and, you know, around value and, and nature and, and, and
biodiversity credit markets and so on.
Yes, I think things are moving fast.
I think there's a lot of fragmentation in that.
And you know, we even commissioned a, a study done by
another party to, to look at biodiversity credits.
And I think by the time they finished the study, there were
50% more biodiversity credit standards out there than when
they when they started. And so I actually see this as an
additional sort of MRV framework that can really help bring
credibility, bring more robustness into sort of bio
specifically biodiversity outcomes monitoring within the
portfolio. But really at this moment in
time, you know, we're waiting to see which, which particular
certification standard is going to become market accepted.
I would just, I mean, I, I, I think, you know, despite my
comment around the market itself, around biodiversity
credits, I mean, I, frankly, I would, I feel that biodiversity
credits per SE might not necessarily be the, the best
direction to go. I might be shown to be wrong on
this. I, I would say that sort of more
of a bundled nature credit would be more valuable to the market.
But clearly, you know, it's in decades for the carbon markets
to kind of structure and establish and and you know, and
have have a market really in place for them.
Clearly it's not going to take that long in the nature credit,
biodiversity credit space. I think it's going to be much
faster and we're already seeing those developments.
And you know, if that brings more financing to nature, great
by all means. And you know, we are more than
happy to align as long as these standards can show credibility.
Yeah, I mean, if, if nothing, there will be so much research
being done on how to, you know, monitor and measure outcomes of
biodiversity in various levels through all the biodiversity
credit mechanisms that have been set up that we will at least
have that. I know you've got to go.
So just finally, just a bit of an open-ended question.
You're coming over for London Climate Action Week.
I'm sure there's lots of other events you're going to this
year. And I would encourage people
listening to reach out if you wanted to meet with Mike and the
team while they're over. But what are the sort of the
biggest things that you think would make the most impact that
we could collectively do if we want private sector finance or
or general finance, you know, from financial institutions to
start feeding in much more to conservation?
So I think I, I will actually leave the demand side aside in
responding to this. I, I do believe genuinely that
there is a sizeable interest and sizeable market out there for
natural capital protection and and restoration.
And I know that there will be lots of people who will argue
otherwise. And you know, sometimes I would
myself as well. But let's, let's assume that
that is a given. I I think where we really need
to focus on is the project supply, the project supply.
Yeah, I always hear the opposite.
So yeah, no, sorry, I'm intrigued.
And indeed, this is kind of why I decided to leave the demand
side to side. You know what we're seeing as I
mentioned, you know Nastari Capital is 40 people.
Twenty of those people are actually project facing.
We provide so much technical assistance to projects.
We provide guidance on development of budgets.
We provide technical assistance if there is a fire in place, we
provide technical assistance. You know, if, if a project
suffers encroachment, we, we help them develop and we finance
the early stages I mentioned before, right, in developing
management plans, in developing livelihood plans and so on.
You know, I believe that the market will be there if it isn't
already. But we need a credible project
supply pipeline into which that financing will go.
I think for decades people have been saying there isn't enough
money for conservation. Well, I think we're turning the
corner around that. I think now conservation needs
to demonstrate that it is actually worth and able to
demonstrate the the positive impact that it needs to and the
outcomes that it needs to demonstrate in order for that
money to actually flow to those projects.
And you know, I have AI have many ideas about how we can do
that and how we can do that collectively and how different
financial streams and how blended finance can be leveraged
for that. You know, the role of donors I
think is really phenomenal in this.
And you know I will just give you an example, Lestari Capital
and the Rimba Collective, we have captured such significant
demand and we have such significant demand for quality
projects on the ground. If we are able to align with
donors and technical assistance facilities that actually build
that pipeline in place, imagine that that donor is then able to
say, well, I know that if I support this project at the
early stage that there is a market based financing that will
then fund that project for the next 25 years.
Well, isn't that a win for the donor?
Isn't that a win for the market and that that we would represent
the member collected? But isn't that also a win for
those projects and for this country where these projects
then actually have long term sustainable finance?
And so this is really something, and I, you know, I mentioned
kind of systematic failure in, in conservation.
And I think in general, that is unfortunately maybe slightly
dramatic way of putting it. But I, I, I think that is still
the case. And you know, we need to be able
to start demonstrating the, the impact, but clearly we need to
start sometimes with retraining the existing practitioners.
We need to start actually with training a new generation of
practitioners to prepare these countries and these projects for
these markets. Otherwise conservation finance
will go around, especially the community type projects because
they will be viewed as high risk and they will be viewed as
potentially as too small. But look, we're trying to
demonstrate what is possible and yes, it is difficult and there
are risks involved in it, but what other option do we have
other than to make it successful?
And I really believe that that is where the kind of the
collective action more broadly with the stakeholders and
shareholders and and everybody else, the donor community, the
NGO community, where we can all come together and say, you know,
how do we address this issue? I think the money is there.
We should stop fighting over the money.
How we should focus on where we want to be in 10 years time?
So gosh, so. Fascinating and hearing you
really makes me think about how we could all move a lot faster
through shared learnings. Actually, I mentioned earlier
the investment readiness funds in the UK, those technical
assistance facilities with grants issued to the supply side
to develop a business case, which sounds like.
That. Would actually be really helpful
to be replicated in your world. But then on the other side,
where we're now struggling in the UK for example, is that
there is this willing and ready supply side.
We've got about well over 150 projects in the UK with many
more farmers and land managers within them.
And but it's actually the demand that's lacking.
You know, other than biodiversity net gain, which is
really our sort of lead compliance market, if you were
our only compliance market really there's.
It's it's just all kind. Of voluntary.
So I think there's a lot we could learn from your work on
how to really build that demand, as you say.
But as you know, as you point out, it's, it's really about
Everything Everywhere, all at once, working together, the
demand, the supply, the enabling policy, that philanthropic
funding and the finance. But we could go on forever.
I know. And I promised that I was going
to let you go. So just before you do, you're
over for London Climate Action Week and we'll be hosting an
event. So do you want to share with us
a bit more about that for those who are going who might be
interested in attending? No, I'm, I'm really excited
actually to be coming to the London Climate Week because we
spent so much of our time and I and I and I think we've, we've
really focused as Lestari to try to not talk too much about what
we're doing and focus on actually achieving things on the
ground, right. There are too many kind of
there's and, and there's obviously a sort of an
announcement fatigue and an ambition announcement fatigue
now in this, in this space. And so we really try to move
away from that. You know, we've been operating
now for eight years. The remember collective, it's,
you know, it's, it's halfway to its target and, and it's third
year of operations. And so we're really happy now to
start actually sharing our case studies and, and our work.
And so we will be actually, I'll, I'll be in London for the
entire week from the, I think it's the 23rd.
And we will also have an event at the Guildhall on the 25th of
June at 3:00 PM, which is part of the Climate Innovation Forum.
And we will be there on stage with two of the founding
partners, Procter and Gamble and Nestle as well.
So the the session is titled Where nature meets Procurement.
How can the private sector create value from biodiversity
conservation in sourcing landscapes?
Sort of nice title to summarise what we've just been discussing.
And, and you have to register. Let's just encourage people
don't just turn off at the door, although that's that would be
lovely. But you do have to register.
And we can include the link on the revenues for Nature page or
on the GFI Hive page where the podcast will sit, as well as on
Apple and Spotify, if we can post manage to post the link
there because it's quite a long link.
And otherwise, I'm sure if you Google it or you can e-mail me
and I'll pass you on to the Rimba team who can, the starry
team rather who can send you to that event.
But thank you so much, Wang. It's been so fascinating.
And you know, we just absolutely adore the model.
I'm really excited to see it thriving and and looking to
replicate and scale and whatever we can do to support absolutely
will do. Thank you, Helen.
Very nice to speak to you. So that is it from us today.
Thank you so much for listening. If you want to find out more
about Rimba Collective and indeed the Story Capital, you
can check out their website, rimbacollective.com.
Over on our website, you'll find a longer case study on Rimba 2.
Again, just search revenues for HDFI and you'll end up in the
right place, A very long URL. Over the next two weeks, I'll be
joined by two guests. 1 is Tom Curtis, Co founder of Three Keel
and the Lens model that is Landscape Enterprise Networks
that operating across Europe, unlocking investment from
multiple businesses in the Agri, food and water sector to pay
farmers for climate and nature friendly actions.
We're also going to be hearing from Vanessa Garcia who's over
at Terra Sauce and we're going to be talking about compliance
models, mitigation banking and all the great work they're doing
there and regulated markets that move private sector investment
across Latin America. But next week is London Climate
Action Week or L Core as we like to call it.
I do hope you all have a great time if you're going there.
GFI has partnered with L Seg and Reuters to Co host a morning TV
show every day during L core. I'll be on there on nature day
with UK nature envoy Ruth Davis and TNFT chair David Craig, but
there are many guests as well that day and every day.
So do check that out. Again, a URL that is simply too
complicated to share verbally. But if you search L core L seg
you will get to the right place and it's on the main GFI
LinkedIn page 2. Until next time, I hope you have
a wonderful week.