

Climate Asset Management has delivered the first tranche of a $150 million financing package it pledged to the Restore Africa program at COP26 in November. The size of the tranche is undisclosed.
Restore Africa aims to restore 2 million hectares of land and directly support 2 million smallholder farmers by 2026 across Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Why it matters
The programme is designed to link community-led regenerative farming and land restoration efforts with emerging global carbon markets.
CAM – an HSBC and Pollination JV – is raising a natural capital strategy for institutional investors and a carbon strategy aimed at corporates looking for ways to reach their net-zero targets.
The firm drew capital from its carbon strategy, which will deliver returns to investors in the form of carbon credits.
“What we’re putting together is not a classical investment product, but more a solutions product,” CAM’s CIO for nature-based carbon strategy Martin Berg told Agri Investor in January. “We’re helping these corporates access these type of projects in order to source high quality offsets over a longer time period.
“So it’s really early stage work, getting the projects off the ground and then ensuring corporates have a stable stream of carbon credits over time. And that really fits neatly with their net-zero targets because the time horizon is generally around 2030, some are 2040 and some are looking at 2050.”
Berg described the Restore Africa program as a “blueprint” for CAM going forward, for which the firm partnered with land restoration NGO Global EverGreening Alliance.