Conservation of legal reserves and of permanent protection and recomposition of degraded areas will receive resources from Green CPRs bonds
Brasil BioFuels (BBF) and the startup Global Forest Bond (GFB) have taken the first step in structuring a pioneering payment for environmental services (PES) project, the aim of which is to remunerate the contributions made by companies to actions such as the maintenance of native forests and the recovery of degraded areas. BBF and GFB signed an agreement with the project's first guidelines.
Through the partnership, the companies intend to make it feasible to issue Green CPRs, regulated titles for the payment for the conservation of legal reserves and Permanent Preservation Areas (APPs) and for the recomposition of degraded areas in the Northern region of the country. There will also be joint analyses for possible carbon credit emissions linked to this recomposition. This model is unprecedented and will allow the financial structuring of agribusiness ventures to have access to means to remunerate environmental services.
According to Eduardo Marson, CEO of GFB, "we helped adapt an application that KPMG developed and already used to audit millions of hectares of soybeans throughout Brazil to the forestry area, which we have exclusive use of for environmental asset management. By photographing a tree on the tablet, we can measure diameter, height and carbon stock digitally. But we go further: we record animal sounds, identify species and measure the amount of water in the biome, providing those who buy the bonds with other possibilities for environmental claims and compensations besides carbon, such as biodiversity and water footprint, for example. Our platform is ready to evolve as science evolves in this field of PES."
BBF's president, Milton Steagall, highlights: "The adoption of sustainable instruments is in line with the conservation and reforestation practices that BBF has applied to the origination processes of its products. Sustainability, in fact, applies to the entire production chain of BBF, from planting to the final product".
BBF is the largest palm oil producer in Latin America, with more than 200,000 tons/year and a cultivated area of more than 68,000 hectares. The company is one of the pioneers in creating sustainable solutions for generating electricity in isolated systems: plants powered by biodiesel produced in the region. BBF has created an integrated business model in which it operates from the beginning to the end of the value chain, from planting the palm, extracting the crude oil and producing biofuels, to generating energy. BBF's operations are located in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Rondônia, Roraima and Pará, comprising 36 thermoelectric plants (22 in operation and 14 under construction), 3 palm oil crushing plants and 1 biodiesel plant. The company's assets total around R$1.5 billion, generating more than 6,000 jobs in the northern region of Brazil.
The company also maintains a partnership with the distributor Vibra Energia for a project to produce Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO). In the Manaus Free Trade Zone, the companies are implementing the first Biorefinery in the country, on an industrial scale, for the production of these two sustainable fuels. The new enterprise will require the conservation of 100 thousand hectares of legal reserve and the recovery of another 100 thousand hectares of degraded areas in the Amazon through palm planting, in addition to the existing conservation and cultivation areas.
Global Forest Bond is a Brazilian startup founded in 2019 by Eduardo Marson, Wilson Tomanik, and Artur Ferreira. The company develops solutions for the valuation of biomes and ecosystem services. In partnership with KPMG, a global leader in auditing and consulting services, GFB also created a digital platform for the valuation and management of environmental assets, automating part of the traditional forest inventory activities, which substantially reduces the cost and time of this activity. Through this platform, the owners of the areas are able to prove, in a secure way for their buyers, the data collected, whether in native forests, planted forests, or reforestation projects. The technology allows greater transparency and security for the companies that acquire the titles backed by environmental conservation. From a KPMG datalake - accessible by QR code - it is possible to publish data from field inventories directly to clients, regulatory agencies and civil society.
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