Fundo Vale holds events at Cubo Itaú, one of Brazil’s largest innovation and entrepreneurship hubs
Between August 26 and 30, the first edition of São Paulo Climate Week took place at Cubo Itaú, inspired by Climate Week NYC, which is held every year in New York City. The event featured transformative dialogues to generate concrete actions for the climate. Leaders, experts, international organizations and members of the public discussed pressing challenges and solutions for tackling the climate crisis. Each day of the week was dedicated to a different theme: Innovation, Agriculture, the Amazon, COP and Oceans.
The third day of the event, dedicated to the Amazon, was curated by Fundo Vale. There were crucial debates on how to protect and restore forested areas – vital actions for regulating the global climate. Kicking off the day, Fundo Vale’s Amazon and partnerships manager, Márcia Soares, spoke about how the organization looks at this biome. “We believe that the region’s conservation depends on its sustainable use, which is why we have been supporting initiatives that place economic value on social and biological diversity products, which bring fairer and more inclusive benefits to local populations, and that transform the region’s bioeconomy, positioning Brazil as a global leader,” she said.
Over the course of the day, other topics related to the Amazon were discussed, such as science and traditional knowledge, climate and biodiversity, climate justice, the bioeconomy and blended finance for nature. “Holding São Paulo Climate Week at Cubo Itaú, the largest innovation center in Latin America, highlights the essential connection between innovation and sustainability. It is in this kind of environment that new ideas and technologies meet to drive potential solutions to transform realities,” said Giovana Gohr Serenato of Fundo Vale’s Innovation Area.
Organized by Cubo ESG (part of Cubo Itaú) and Itaú Unibanco, and sponsored by Fundo Vale, São Paulo Climate Week was attended by more than 850 people in person and 450 via online broadcast, and it featured over 100 speakers.
Celebration of the Amazon
To celebrate Amazon Day on September 5, Fundo Vale’s Innovation Area, in partnership with the Partners for the Amazon platform and paper and pulp giant Suzano, organized a series of initiatives at Cubo Itaú in São Paulo to draw the community’s attention to the importance of the world’s largest rainforest.
Among other things, Amazonian food products were offered at the startup Market4U’s points of sale at a 90% discount. These items are also available on the Amazon at Home, Intact Forest platform, an initiative made possible by Climate Ventures and the Amazon Conservation and Sustainable Development Institute (Idesam), in partnership with Fundo Vale.
Over the course of September 5, various activities took place in Cubo Itaú’s building, featuring Cacauway, a brand licensed by the Transamazon Agroindustrial Cooperative (COOPATRANS), which highlighted the potential of cocoa in the Amazon region.
On another front, the coffee machines on all floors of the building received supplies of Café Apuí, the first coffee produced sustainably by Amazônia Agroflorestal and Idesam, another initiative supported by Fundo Vale. The Sofá Café coffee shop, located on the first floor of Cubo Itaú, also added Amazonian ingredients to its dishes.
Amazon Day was established in Brazil by Law 11,621 of 2007. September 5 was the chosen date, given that the province of Amazonas was formally created by Emperor Pedro II on this day in 1850.
