Dive Brief:
- Bank of America and the Sustainable Markets Initiative, a nonprofit founded by King Charles III, have teamed up to launch a $40 million investment strategy designed to develop and scale nature and biodiversity solutions.
- The strategy, called the Lighthouse Initiative, went live on Sept. 23 and will be managed by French asset manager Eurazeo as part of its Future Industries III Fund, which invests in sustainable industries across the globe. Investments made through the new strategy will be tracked through Eurazeo’s impact framework, which includes a biodiversity footprint assessment, according to a Monday press release.
- Eurazeo, along with Bank of America, led the initial capital commitments, though the companies said the initiative has been structured to welcome investments from new partners over time.
Dive Insight:
The Lighthouse Initiative seeks to direct private capital towards nature-focused projects that remain underfunded today, per BofA and SMI. The bank and sustainable markets venture said the strategy will make minority investments in environmental projects and tech businesses globally and align with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, an international agreement adopted in 2022 that has set a path to stop and reverse biodiversity loss.
Every investment made through the Lighthouse Initiative will contribute to at least one of the framework’s targets, which includes a goal to conserve and manage at least 30% of the world’s terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas by 2030.
The companies said each investment made under the strategy will also align with SMI’s “Terra Carta, ”which translates to “Earth Charter”. The Terra Carta is a mandate established by the former Prince of Wales in 2021 which provides a roadmap for how the private sector can prioritize sustainability and align corporate business models with climate targets established under the Paris Agreement and other nature-focused frameworks.
The Lighthouse Initiative’s strategy will focus on investing in projects that boost ecosystem protection and nature regeneration; support the clean transition in industries and global supply chains; help develop nature finance ecosystems; and back solutions that improve the measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification of sustainable outcomes.
“Nature is the foundation of the industries we invest in, yet biodiversity remains one of the most underfunded investment themes,” Matthieu Bonamy, a partner at Eurazeo’s Future Industries fund said in the release. “With this initiative, we want to demonstrate that protecting and restoring Nature makes commercial sense, at scale.”
