OVERVIEW
From 2017-2023, USAID Green Invest Asia helped agriculture and forestry businesses in Southeast Asia improve the sustainability and environmental stewardship of their operations by connecting them with like-minded investors and reducing barriers to investment. Green Invest Asia advanced the U.S. Government’s Indo-Pacific Framework and its commitment to market-driven development by fostering private sector engagement on sustainable supply chains, and drove progress against the USAID Climate Strategy targets by mobilizing finance to invest in the transition to a net-zero economy, and mitigating or reducing carbon emissions associated with the land use sector.
RESULTS
- Unlocked $446 million in climate financing into sustainable production of rubber, rice, coffee, cacao, teak, forest restoration and forest carbon projects
- Reduced 156 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, based on 15-year projections
- Improved the management of 1.7 million hectares of land used in the agricultural and forestry sectors
Sustainable coconut charter
USAID Green Invest Asia convened seven major players in the coconut industry to launch the Sustainable Coconut Charter in November 2020. The Charter now has 17 signatories–including AAK, Barry Callebaut, , Nestlé, and Unilever–that control nearly half the annual trade volume in coconuts worldwide. As the coconut industry’s first attempt at regional collaboration to honor global sustainability commitments, the Charter boosts local farmer livelihoods and coconut supply to meet overall demand. USAID advised the Sustainable Coconut Taskforce, formed in 2021, and the Sustainable Coconut Steering Committee, leading the formation of an independent Secretariat in November 2022.
Joint coffee carbon footprint baseline study
In March 2022, with co-investment from the world’s two largest coffee roasters, Nestlé and JDE Peet’s, USAID Green Invest Asia launched a carbon footprint study in the Central Highlands of Vietnam and Southern Sumatra in Indonesia, two major Robusta coffee sourcing regions that together supply 20 percent of the world’s overall coffee. Lavazza Group and Costa Coffee later joined and co-invested in the collaboration, creating the largest-scale effort to date to calculate a carbon emissions baseline of on-farm carbon emissions from Robusta coffee cultivation and production in Southeast Asia. Over 100 agronomists surveyed and collected field data from more than 4,500 farms over four months, resulting in an unprecedented 15-company collaboration to standardize a method to measure carbon emissions in the coffee sector, and to collect and share that climate reporting. Learn more through the activity’s webinar series, Sustainable Coffee Dialogues.
Innovative cocoa business model
With the Cocoa Association of Asia (CCA), USAID Green Invest Asia co-hosted a panel at the International Cocoa Conference in September 2022 and a webinar in November 2022 to discuss strategies to mitigate climate risk and build resilience in the industry. Through these events, partner companies–Puratos Grand Place, Kennemer Foods International, and Mondelez International–shared their experience implementing climate programs, including nature-based solutions, with smallholder cacao farmers in Southeast Asia. Kennemer highlighted nature-based solutions, including the Philippines’ first carbon credits, accomplished through support on financial modeling and a spatial analysis of deforestation to identify potential conservation and restoration sites. This work facilitated a $14 million investment by Mirova’s Land Degradation Neutrality Fund.
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) training for bankers
Building on ESG training modules developed through USAID/Cambodia, the activity conducted trainings in Vietnam on diagnostic analytics for existing credit process flows, risk management policies, and credit policies. USAID Green Invest Asia also partnered with the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment on a workshop to enhance understanding of sustainable finance in December 2022. More than 60 participants, mostly from Vietnam’s banking sector, learned from regional experts on connecting green businesses with investors, and best practices supporting sustainable business models throughout Southeast Asia.
Original source can be found here.