The Brief

The Brief: Bringing a gender lens to climate finance negotiations at COP29

ImpactAlpha · November 14, 2024

Greetings Agents of Impact!

Answer the Call: New realities, new narratives. The work continues… to protect hard-fought gains, expand the Ownership Economy, rally leadership for climate action, make common cause around green jobs and entrepreneurial revival, design AI for good, and seize the coming disruptions for positive change – if at all possible. On next week’s Call, we’ll hear from Antony Bugg-Levine on moving from intention to action, Rachel Robasciotti on the Freedom Economy, Wilson Lester on “the North Carolina model,” and other Agents of Impact who are charting what comes next after the US election. Join the conversation with David Bank and the ImpactAlpha team, Monday, Nov. 18, at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm London. RSVP today.

In today’s Brief:

Podcast: Sana Kapadia brings a gender lens to global climate negotiations
Expanding access to youth mental health services
For PE investors, energy transition trends trump Trump

Featured: Climate + Gender

Voices of women and Indigenous leaders push ‘the Finance COP’ toward a just transition (podcast). The group photo of global leaders assembled at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan – the ones who dared to show up – showed the usual old boys club. But a persistent crew of women are putting themselves in the center of high-stakes climate conversations. A social media campaign launched this week by Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former environment minister, and María Mendiluce of the We Mean Business Coalition, is lifting the work of female climate leaders, along with climate morale. Razan Al Mubarak, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for last year’s COP summit in Dubai, is pushing the issues of gender, nature and biodiversity. Hindou Ibrahim, the Indigenous climate activist from Chad, is championing the knowledge of Indigenous communities and the shift to a nature-based economy. “We’re really seeing women’s leadership show up by getting to the heart of what needs to be solved for and coming up with right-sized, fit for purpose, proximate solutions,” says Sana Kapadia of Heading for Change, the climate + gender investment initiative launched by the late Suzanne Biegel. Kapadia joined ImpactAlpha’s David Bank on the latest Agents of Impact podcast from Dubai before heading to Baku. “It’s more of a systems-level approach to leadership and to investing that we’re seeing take shape,” she says.

Gender smart. The “Finance COP” is focusing on a new target for financing climate mitigation and adaptation in vulnerable and low-income countries, and strengthening global carbon markets (see, “Global climate leadership shifts to China, Brazil – and Azerbaijan”). Discussion of how climate change affects women and how women drive climate action is largely absent from the official COP29 agenda. The new carbon market standards approved this week, for example, have been criticized for lack of attention to human and community rights. Kapadia is hoping “to advance dialog on why and how gender-responsive climate finance matters.” For one, women’s livelihoods are more closely tied to land and natural ecosystems needed to sequester carbon and ensure that carbon credit projects succeed. Also, companies that have at least 30% female board representation have stronger climate governance and innovation and manage emissions better than those with fewer women on their boards.
Participatory finance. Kapadia is headed to Baku with examples from Heading for Change’s own portfolio of fund managers that apply a gender lens to the circular economy, renewable energy, the built environment, regenerative agriculture, and to many financial instruments (search ImpactAlpha’s database of more than three dozen Climate + Gender funds). In Baku, Kapadia’s focus will be on “the differentiated needs of women and under-represented Indigenous communities” in the design of climate finance products and solutions. “A more participatory approach,” she says, “helps us make better decisions. That’s why diversity matters, right?”
Keep reading and listen to, “Voices of women and Indigenous leaders push ‘the Finance COP’ toward a just transition (podcast),” on ImpactAlpha. Subscribe to ImpactAlpha podcasts wherever you listen, and catch up on all of the shows on the ImpactAlpha Podcast Network.

Dealflow: Healthy Youth

Fort Health raises $5.5 million to expand access to pediatric mental health services. The New York-based company was launched two years ago in partnership with the Child Mind Institute to help pediatricians refer patients for evidence-based therapy, psychiatry and other mental health services. Fort Health’s clinical team creates personalized care plans that let pediatricians track patients’ clinical progress. “Pediatricians are the most trusted relationship in family healthcare, yet they’re overwhelmed by patients with mental health issues,” said Fort Health’s Natalie Schneider. “We have built our model to ensure that the pediatrician is central to the care team.” Fort Health expands patients’ care teams with school nurses, teachers and parents, with services covered by most health insurance plans for patients aged four to 24 years.

Lowering costs. About one in five children in the US experience a mental health issue each year; nearly two-thirds get little or no care, according to the research nonprofit Mental Health America. The high costs of mental healthcare, combined with a shortage of experienced professionals, represents a challenging barrier for many families. “Many solutions exist for families who can pay out of pocket, but we wanted to help democratize access for those families who cannot afford cash-pay,” said Taylor Greene of New York-based Twelve Below, which co-led the financing round.
Investing in health. Twelve Below and Vanterra led the round, with participation from Redesign Health, Blue Venture Fund and True Wealth Ventures. Fort Health works with mental health care providers in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The new capital will support the company’s expansion to Texas and Illinois, where it will partner with behavioral health services provider NovaWell.
Check it out. ImpactAlpha’s coverage of youth mental health is supported by Hopelab, a social innovation lab and impact investor working at the intersection of tech and youth mental health.

IndiGrid, BII and Norfund launch EnerGrid to finance energy transmission and storage in India. At the COP29 climate summit, India’s listed power infrastructure investment trust, IndiGrid, along with British International Investment, and Norfund each committed $100 million to launch EnerGrid, which will bid for and develop energy transmission and battery storage projects. The two development financial institutions and Indian power infrastructure developer Techno Electric invested in three of IndiGrid’s interstate transmission projects in August.

Strengthening energy infrastructure. India’s energy demand is surging; the country will need an estimated 4.8 trillion rupees ($5.7 billion) by 2027 for additional transmission capacity. EnerGrid is looking to mobilize $1.2 billion for transmission projects in coming years, said Indigrid’s Harsh Shah. “The transmission sector is witnessing a bidding pipeline like never before, which we are looking to leverage to drive growth.”
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

BNP Paribas, Earthshot Ventures, AgFunder, Ananda Impact Ventures and others led a $22 million Series A round for Germany’s Klim to help food companies cut emissions within their value chains and promote regenerative agriculture practices. (AFN)

Africa-focused renewable energy developer Axian Energy landed €84 million ($89.2 million) in debt from the Emerging Africa and Asia Infrastructure Fund, FMO and DEG to set up two solar + battery storage systems in Senegal. (Reuters)

Dublin-based Gazelle Wind Power raised €11.4 million ($12.3 million) in a Series A round led by Indico Capital Partners to develop a floating wind project off the coast of Portugal. (PEI)

Bangalore-based Wheelocity secured $15 million in a Series A extension round led by Lightspeed, to expand e-commerce delivery to 20,000 rural and semi-urban towns and villages. (Entrackr)

Amsterdam’s Sympower, which helps businesses manage their energy use, landed €21.3 million ($22.5 million) from A&G Energy Transition Tech Fund, Rubio Impact Ventures, the European Investment Fund. (EU Startups)

Overheard: SuperReturn

For private equity investors, energy transition trends trump election results. Wait and see. That was the tone of private equity managers and investors at this week’s SuperReturn private capital conference in Manhattan following Donald Trump’s election victory last week. PE firms have piled into renewable energy, green infrastructure and other building blocks of the energy transition, hoping to ride tailwinds from landmark Biden-era legislation, including the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law. Trump is widely expected to take a wrecking ball to those programs as well as a broader range of environmental policies. Much of the IRA and infrastructure funds have already been deployed or committed, but unspent funds could be yanked. “We are living in a moment of maximum uncertainty right now,” Robert Tichio of Fortescue Capital said. “We’re going to need some clarity on the IRA.”

Stay the course. Several investors emphasized unstoppable momentum behind the transition, regardless of administration. “We’re bullish on the long term trends,” said Scott Chung of Tikehau Capital, a French sustainable investment firm. He noted that solar made up less than 1% of all new energy additions in 2010, but by 2020, the last year of Trump’s first term, it made up one-third of new energy. Not even oil giant ExxonMobil, which has leveraged IRA incentives for hydrogen and carbon capture projects, wants to reverse course. At the COP29 climate summit this week, Exxon’s Darren Woods urged Trump not to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. “I don’t think the stops and starts are the right thing for businesses,” Woods told The Wall Street Journal. “It is extremely inefficient. It creates a lot of uncertainty.”
Green red states. The IRA has spurred more than $125 billion in private investment for 330 clean energy and vehicle projects that could create nearly 110,000 jobs – more than two-thirds of them in Republican congressional districts. “Domestic manufacturing and onshoring and industrial resilience have been catapulted forward,” said Brian Wayne of Curvepoint, which launched earlier this year to finance growth-stage climate tech companies (see, “Flexible financing to bridge a ‘missing middle’ for commercial climate solutions”). “I think that will continue to accelerate.”
Human capital. “No matter what happened in the election, the transition is happening,” Spring Lane Capital’s Jason Scott said. One indicator is the number of “powerful people coming out of conventional businesses,” including oil and gas, who are investing in clean technologies, Scott said. Another factor: Elon. Scott said Tesla’s Musk, who has a central role in the presidential transition, “actually understands the clean energy economy and technical innovation and all of these issues for economic growth.”
Keep reading, “For private equity investors, energy transition trends trump election results,” by Snehal Shah on ImpactAlpha.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

The Justice Climate Fund names Theresa Bedeau, formerly of Capital One, as chief engagement and strategy Officer; Renay Carver, previously with Verint Systems, becomes chief compliance and reporting officer, and Brenda Loya, formerly with BlueHub Capital, becomes chief financial and operating officer. The appointments will help JCF roll out its Clean Communities Investment Accelerator. Shiva Patel was named managing director of JCF’s CCIA Program.

Acre Impact Capital taps ING’s Michiel de Vries as an advisory board member… Carlyle Group is hiring a sustainability manager in Washington, DC… Goldman Sachs has an opening for a sustainability and impact associate in New York… Chemonics International seeks a program director for its Climate Finance for Development Accelerator… Lumen Energy is recruiting a project finance director in San Francisco… ImpactAssets is looking for an investment services associate… Adasina Social Capital hands off management of the Due Diligence 2.0 initiative to Rhia Ventures.