We will prove that it is possible to do things differently. That communities, traditional peoples and farmers can make a living from sustainable production. And that impact investments in new business models, committed to preserving and regenerating our natural resources, can generate much bigger benefits and make Brazil the environmental power it deserves to be.
We will collaborate with Vale in the construction of a sustainable future, to leave major social, environmental and economic legacies, not just for Brazil, but for the whole world’s next generations.
A group of institutes and foundations, including Fundo Vale, came together to understand the challenges of impact businesses and to solve social and environmental problems in every phase of entrepreneurs’ journey – validation, acceleration and scaling up. Between 2017 and 2020, FIIMP worked with 32 institutes, foundations and companies, it invested around R$1.9 million, it supported nine intermediaries, and it directly benefited 50 impact businesses.
This study, carried out every two years by Pipe Social, is widely recognized in the impact business and investment sector. Fundo Vale is one of the sponsors of the Third Social and Environmental Impact Business Map, which maps businesses that are seeking to solve society’s social and environmental problems by registering entrepreneurs on a platform. This edition has a chapter that specifically analyzes social and environmental businesses.
This study is conducted every two years by the Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE). Its latest edition, launched in 2020, presented a vision of impact investment trends in the region. There was a chapter dedicated to impact investment in biodiversity and ecosystem conservation. According to the study, Brazil will attract impact investment of US$785 million in the next two years.
This initiative by Climate Ventures seeks to unlock logistics and sales barriers to promote the Amazon’s social and biological diversity products. The Lab is a structured innovation and co-creation space for prototyping and testing solutions that could boost the region’s bioeconomy. As a result of the program, the “Amazon at Home, Intact Forest” movement is being created, with the goal of scaling up prototyped solutions and serving at least 50 businesses over the next two years.
Fundo Vale has supported this program, developed by Idesam and anchored in the Bioeconomy Priority Program defined by the Manaus Free Zone Agency (Suframa) for the Manaus Free Trade Zone. The program seeks to create local investment opportunities, incentivizing companies to produce sustainable development programs and projects for the region, using resources from the Information Technology Law (Law 13,674 of 2018), which requires local technology companies to assign 5% of their gross revenue to research and development activities in the Amazon. Idesam has developed a database of projects involving around 80 businesses. In 2020, R$6.3 million was invested, eight projects were supported and there were seven investor companies.)
This study by Move.Social was designed to improve products and services offered by impact accelerators through a set of established indicators, to contribute to the development of these organizations and their intended impacts. Over the course of nearly one year, the project worked with 11 intermediary organizations (accelerators), and 73 impact businesses and civil society organizations were accelerated through partnerships.
The first organic coffee grown in the Amazon in agroforestry systems involves 59 families, which are protecting 50 hectares of reforested areas and whose annual income has already increased 300%. Created as a project by Idesam to disseminate a more sustainable production model in the southern part of the state of Amazonas, the initiative matured and turned into an agroforestry business. Fundo Vale initially supported the project and later offered blended finance to strengthen the business and allow it to access other credit lines and increase its production scale.