Climate Finance | September 27, 2022

AXA’s €500 million initiative to invest in reforestation and land conservation

Jessica Pothering
ImpactAlpha Editor

Jessica Pothering

ImpactAlpha, September 27 – AXA has launched a €500 million ($482 million) Natural Capital Strategy that will make equity investments and offer project financing to organizations preventing deforestation of vulnerable areas and improving conservation efforts. The goal is to generate carbon credits that can be sold as revenue streams for the projects.

“There is an urgent need to grow scalable investment solutions to protect and sustainably manage natural capital, which are relatively nascent in today’s market,” said Alexandre Martin Min of AXA Investment Managers, which is managing the fund.

The effort is part of AXA Group’s €1.5 billion commitment to support sustainable forest management. The fund will be open to existing AXA investors.

Carbon markets

Rising carbon prices are making conservation, once deemed unbankable, “something that makes viable returns and therefore can unlock institutional capital,” AXA IM’s Jonathan Dean told International Financing Review.

Carbon offset platform ClimateSeed, which AXA IM acquired last year, will handle accounting and sales of carbon credits from the Natural Capital Strategy.

AXA IM has invested €350 million through its climate and biodiversity strategy since 2019. Its portfolio includes Latin America-focused forest conservation company FUNDAECO, peatland restoration venture Forest Carbon, and nature-based project developer The Shared Wood Company.