EcoEnterprises Fund is a women-led venture fund. With a track record of over twenty years, they are building nature-positive, gender-smart investment portfolios in Latin America. As a pioneer in impact investing, the Fund manager works together with small businesses to enhance biodiversity, promote climate solutions, and create socio-economic opportunities for rural communities.
“As the saying goes, what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed. It is vital that our investees understand where their emissions are coming from so that they can reduce them.”
Agustina Casaburi, EcoEnterprises Fund, Impact & ESG Officer
EcoEnterprises Fund has an ambitious plan to enhance carbon footprint measurements across all portfolio companies. The initiative made good progress in 2023 and carbon footprint measurements were done with several investees, such as FLP, Equilibria and OMEGA Azul Seafood. One portfolio company, Sistema.bio, had already an existing in-house carbon footprint calculation for which the Fund made external review. By the end of the year, the fund manager had reached 10 of the 13 portfolio companies with carbon footprint measurement. The remaining three will be done in 2024.
Two important takeaways from the Carbon Footprint measurement projects were:
- It can be challenging to access upstream data in complex value chains especially for companies that rely on smallholder farmers.
- Natural forest conservation is crucial to succeed going above-and-beyond net zero.
Climate tech beyond carbon footprints
Following up the carbon footprints measurement projects, EcoEnterprises contracted an external expert to conduct a deep dive into the companies’ capability to respond to the findings. The aim was to grasp the essence of climate tech, explore its current and potential utilization within portfolio companies and identify possible opportunities within the companies and across their supply chains for effective adaptation and mitigation purposes.
Climate tech was grouped into the following five categories:
- Low-carbon Energy Technologies: shifting from conventional to cleaner energy sources.
- Eco-efficiency Technologies: reducing energy and material use during production.
- Green Design Technologies: focusing on sustainable design to lower a product’s GHG emissions.
- Pollution Control Technologies: managing emissions at process endpoints.
- Management System Technologies: supervising operational management and emission tracking.
Results and planned activities
For each of the involved portfolio companies, the consultant made infographics on how Climate Tech is already being used and the future opportunities (see picture 1). The below overarching trends were found among the portfolio companies:
- Supply Chain Vulnerabilities: Companies with smallholder farmers in their supply chain see these suppliers are a major source of GHG emissions and as a potential climate risk. Initiatives to bolster climate change resilience in these sectors and to reduce GHG emissions were highlighted.
- Organic Farming & Green Design: Organic farming stands out as a possible prevalent green design strategy among the companies.
- Emerging Monitoring Systems: Several portfolio companies are in the nascent stages of deploying more advanced monitoring systems, demonstrating the importance of real-time data in managing environmental impacts and climate risks.
- Energy and Waste Management: This is a focus area for most portfolio companies. However, one investee is a role model within its sector.
The carbon footprint measurements and the deep dive analysis were partly financed by the Fund’s Technical Assistance Facility, which is funded by Norfund Business Support and other DFIs
Business Support: 170.000 USD (15% of the total cost)
Intervention Period: January 2023 – December 2024
SDG 13: Climate Action
Sistema.bio
Sistema.bio is EcoEnterprises Fund’s portfolio company that provides prefabricated modular biodigester packages for farms that convert organic waste into renewable biogas and organic fertilizer. The company is a positive contributor to the carbon offset mechanisms.
Even with these positive results, the company is keen to do more and is now initiating projects to encourage supply chains to reduce their carbon emissions more systematically. The final goal is NET-ZERO.
