MFF in São Paulo

Ten years on from the Paris Agreement, COP30 marks a pivotal moment for making bold commitments and implementing robust plans for climate action. Moving from ambition to action is critical, and at the heart of this transition lies the urgent need to channel financial resources into emerging economies. Before the main conference, pre-COP events in São Paulo played a crucial role as a platform to build momentum and consensus on sustainable finance, with events across the city facilitating discussions and strategy development ahead of the official negotiations.

A key event of the week was the PRI in Person Conference, which provided a critical platform to develop sustainable and innovative financing solutions for emerging economies. As a UN-backed global network of investors, the PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment) works to incorporate ESG considerations into investment decisions. Founded in 2006, the PRI provides a framework for investors to align their portfolios with sustainable and long-term returns. As of 2025, there are 5,261 signatories, representing a total AUM of US$ 139.6 trillion.

With a core focus on unlocking climate finance in emerging markets, the PRI in Person’s agenda was designed to amplify investor action, thought leadership, and policy commitments, generating tangible results that will ultimately advance responsible investment practices and mobilize capital. It is within this context that the Mobilising Finance for Forests’ Learning, Convening, and Influencing Platform (MFF LCIP) hosted two strategic investor-focused events designed to accelerate financial flows for climate and nature in Brazil.

The Brazilian Emerging Funds Mixer

In partnership with the Partnerships for Forests program, the Brazilian Emerging Funds mixer provided an opportunity for early-stage funds to present their models to a panel of investors, including FMO, IFC, Finance in Motion, and an external advisor to Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. Each fund delivered a five-minute pitch outlining its thesis, structure, and growth ambitions:

Kawa Fund – Managed by Violet Capital

Finances smallholder cocoa farmers in the Amazon and Atlantic Forest, with an investment vehicle focused on financial inclusion and environmental restoration. The fund provides credit and technical assistance via local partners, supported by a digital platform that automates eligibility checks and loan origination. Instead of traditional collateral, the fund leverages group guarantees, making credit accessible to farmers without formal land titles. Overall, the fund aims to unlock $187 million in credit for 25,000 sustainable smallholder farmers by 2030, integrating restoration credits for degraded land while combining social impact with climate-positive outcomes.

Iwa Asset Management

Focuses on financing regenerative agriculture in Brazil by providing long-term loans to large farmers who commit to restoring degraded pastureland and adopting sustainable practices. The fund combines collateralized loans, technical assistance, and embedded MRV systems to ensure compliance and generate carbon credits. With a target of $200 million to support 10–20 high-quality producers, the fund aims to remove 1 million tons of carbon over a 10-year period.

Following these pitches, the investor panel provided constructive feedback to the two funds, focusing on pathways to scale and growth areas required to attract further commercial capital. Further probing focused on areas such as capital structure, scalability, data integrity, and risk management. The panel emphasized the value of securing catalytic capital to strengthen the funds’ risk-return propositions, and building operational efficiency to support expansion. In addition, they also highlighted the need for robust monitoring systems to enhance investor confidence and recommended leveraging technology and strategic partnerships to overcome adoption barriers and accelerate growth.

Financing green and greening finance: bankable models in the forests and sustainable land use sector

The second MFF event featured a dynamic conversation between FMO and representatives from BTG Pactual’s Restoration Strategy and the Responsible Commodities Facility (RCF), two investees of the MFF programme. The conversation explored lessons learnt from the design, delivery, impact, returns and scaling pathways of these two models. The discussion and facilitated roundtable also investigated the role of MFF’s investment in supporting the further capitalization of these funds, with a focus on how blended finance de-risking approaches can support commercial investors in deploying climate and nature finance in emerging markets and sectors. In addition, the session served to launch MFF’s latest blueprint, ‘Mobilising Finance for Forests: A Blended Finance Blueprint for Tropical Forest Protection and Restoration’.

Responsible Commodities Facility (RCF)	A green bond structure offering low-interest revolving credit lines to soy farmers in Brazil’s Cerrado, committed to zero deforestation. The strategy has preserved 90,000 hectares and produced 170,000 tons of deforestation-free soy to date. The fund aims to grow from a $60 million pilot to over $500 million over the coming years.
BTG Pactual’s Reforestation Strategy	A strategy combining large-scale forest restoration and sustainable timber production on degraded pasturelands in Brazil’s Cerrado. The fund has already attracted $620 million, with an aim to reach $1 billion, and has secured major carbon credit deals with Microsoft and Meta.

Both interviews highlighted the critical role of blended finance, technical partnerships, and strong ESG standards in unlocking institutional capital. The Q&A session that followed explored regulatory drivers, such as EUDR, challenges with carbon finance, restoration supply chains, insurance solutions, and future scaling strategies. Key insights included the need for ecosystem-level partnerships, innovative financial instruments, and risk mitigation tools to overcome structural barriers and accelerate investment in deforestation-free agriculture and restoration.

Unlocking potential in emerging markets

The two events differed in terms of their aims and target audiences, and the funds and models presented were at various stages of development and fundraising. However, the core message is clear: blended finance and catalytic capital can have a key role in scaling investment in emerging economies. RCF and BTG Pactual’s Reforestation Strategy illustrated how structured blended finance has helped them deliver risk-adjusted returns while achieving measurable climate impact. Meanwhile, the Emerging Funds Mixer emphasised how catalytic capital can enable intermediaries to offer viable lending rates to farmers to transition to more sustainable practices, and attract subsequent commercial investment. In addition, both events highlighted the importance of trust networks, technical partnerships, and policy alignment in accelerating uptake and unlocking climate and nature capital at scale. These real-world examples demonstrate how innovative financing structures can transform ambitious ideas into investible opportunities – ultimately paving the way for a new era of sustainable investment in emerging markets.

A new paper published by the MFF LCIP, ‘Mobilising Finance for Forests: A Blended Finance Blueprint for Tropical Forest Protection and Restoration’, provides a deeper understanding of how the MFF blended finance facility is serving as a key catalytic provider to drive scale in the forests and sustainable land use sectors in emerging markets, as well as specific details of our investments in RCF, BTG Pactual’s Reforestation Strategy and others in the MFF portfolio.