Sustainable Finance Facility

Under the auspices of the Presidency of the French Republic at the One Planet Summit in 2017, BNP Paribas and its partners announced two strategic initiatives aimed at mobilizing the private sector to finance major transformative projects centred around development and the environment in southern countries. These two initiatives have the common goal of creating coalitions between actors from different sectors and mobilizing them to work for sake of the common good. The first of these initiatives - the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) / BNP Paribas partnership - aims to make large institutional investors and pension funds financially eligible (on a national scale) for decisive projects focused on the environment and development. This is helpful as it would have been difficult for them to access these funds in traditional financial markets. Two large-scale programs, one in Indonesia and the other in India, are already being implemented. The second initiative - the One Planet Fellowship program from the International Center for Agroforestry Research (ICRAF), the Agropolis Foundation, African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (who also act as sponsors) capitalizes on the combined experiences of public, associative and private actors spread over three continents. The UNEP / BNP Paribas Program (Sustainable Finance Facility): Erik Solheim, Director General of UNEP and Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, Chief Executive Officer of BNP Paribas, signed a Memorandum of Understanding in December 2017 under the patronage of the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, to mobilize capital to stimulate sustainable economic development in developing countries. The objective is to use BNP Paribas' financial engineering capacity and its distribution potential with a diversified and dynamic range of investors, from major institutions to specialized funds and family offices of entrepreneurs in the new economy, to support large-scale programs whose ultimate beneficiaries are smallholder farmers. These projects are related to access to renewable energy, water, the development of agroecology and the restoration of biodiversity. UNEP and BNP Paribas share the view that the fight against climate change as well the preservation of biodiversity and forests, are among the most crucial challenges of the 21st century. These challenges need to be addressed while ensuring the growth of agricultural productivity that is needed to feed 9 billion people by 2050. Agriculture is the main driver of climate emissions related to deforestation and land use and accounts for about a quarter of total annual greenhouse gas emissions. Under their agreement, UNEP and BNP Paribas are working together on improving agricultural practices to reduce carbon footprint, land-use quality and resilience to climate change impacts, while seeking food security . BNP Paribas and UNEP are collaborating to identify investment opportunities in selected geographic areas in order to generate the cumulative amount of US $ 10 billion for he sake of innovative sustainable financing by 2025. BNP Paribas plays a financial advisory role throughout the entire program and in the structures responsible for implementing it locally. In addition, BNP Paribas is mobilizing its global network to obtain long-term financing from domestic and international capital markets for the different projects. Together with UNEP, the bank is also working to mobilize large companies to secure agricultural markets, as well as multilateral development institutions that can provide a guarantee. Partners also facilitate knowledge exchange, replication of best practices and innovative financing approaches. To date, two financing structures have already been put in place: the Tropical Landscape Financing Facility (TLFF) in Indonesia and the Sustainable India Finance Facility (SIFF) in India.