KfW signed a fiduciary holding in the Sustainable Ocean Fund (SOF) amounting to EUR 25 million for the Caribbean. The fund invests in small and medium-sized businesses that operate sustainable fisheries, are committed to preserving marine and coastal ecosystems, and recycle waste in order to reduce plastic pollution in the oceans, as part of a circular economy.
The effects of climate change, environmental pollution, and largely unsustainable exploitation of the oceans is leading to a loss of biodiversity in the Caribbean. These factors and heavy overfishing make the lives of local people more difficult because income from fishing is decreasing.
“KfW supports what is known as the ‘blue economy’ approach, which mobilises private capital to conserve the Earth’s ecosystems and simultaneously creates jobs through the use of innovative financial instruments like the Sustainable Ocean Fund. As a result, species and coastal area conservation is turning into an interesting business model for many small and medium-sized private companies”, said Prof. Dr. Joachim Nagel, member of KfW Group’s Executive Board.
Due to its participation in the Sustainable Ocean Fund, KfW acts as what is known as an anchor investor, mobilising additional co-investors in the fund, which strives to achieve a total volume of up to USD 150 million (investor commitments to date currently amount to USD 50 million). The Fund intends to primarily invest in small and medium-sized businesses in the Caribbean (40%) but also in Africa (30%) as well as Asia and the Pacific Rim countries (30%). The BMZ funds are specifically intended for investments in the Caribbean.
The projects are part of the Clean Ocean Initiative created in 2018 by KfW Development Bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Agence Française de Développement (AFD). Their goal is to reduce the pollution of the world’s oceans due to waste – especially plastic waste – by 2023.
Original source: KfW
Published on 30 October 2019
