Digital edition: Luxembourg 2019

Raising capital for startups can be challenging, getting the attention of investors and relevant policy makers can be frustrating and delivering a perfect elevator pitch while hitting the right notes can be time consuming. Investment ready projects in landscape management or restoration, seeking financing have applied to this year’s Dragons Den. They will pitch to investors, get in front of high level policy makers and organizations and receive invaluable feedback, build strategic partnerships and gain high profile media exposure.

The Dragon’s Den in Luxembourg will offer the possibility to present landscape related winners of the 3rd call for application of the International Climate Finance Accelerator (ICFA). They will have the possibility to pitch their business models and investment concepts to mobilize attention of new partners and potential investors.

The closing plenary will end the discussions of the day around issues of mainstreaming sustainable finance and defining “the way forward”. The speakers will address the outstanding issues, gaps and barriers identified and discussed throughout the day, and jointly develop a practical action plan or roadmap to further work on moving sustainable land use finance from niche to mainstream. Speakers will identify the key points of intervention for changing the narrative around sustainable finance in the mainstream; and will inspire and unite a global community of practice on sustainable finance – one that is willing and ready to engage for long-term transformational change in this critical sector.

The interactive session will feature the “SICA Region” (Central America and Dominican Republic, SICA = Central American Integration System) as pioneer in forest and landscape restoration that offers investment opportunities for the public and private sector on a national and regional scale.

The session brings together public and private sector perspectives on the process of building the enabling environment, business models and appropriate vehicles for landscape investments at scale for public and private impact and mainstream investors. It offers insights from public and private investors currently investing in landscape restoration in Central America and facilitates a discussion on the potential for public-private cooperation and increased regional integration of investment strategies.

The midday plenary will lead the audience into already existing good practices of sustainable finance in the landscape that are suitable to be scaled up and replicated. Key solutions will be highlighted, and remaining gaps and barriers addressed. Speakers will share lessons learned from the innovative funds and leading finance mechanisms that they work with; and explore new ideas and innovative approaches in replicating and scaling up those approaches while moving beyond the identified barriers. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards will be elaborated on as key conditions for ensuring that proposed solutions lead to land-use investments that are truly “sustainable” and address sustainable finance taxonomy developments.

There are significant barriers for smallholders to access finance mechanisms to fund the needed changes in their production systems towards greater sustainability and stability. On the other side, barriers are also present for financial institutions to be better oriented towards sustainable landscapes in general. All these barriers are relatively well known, but they have not been object of profound analysis and thus have not been addressed at a scale sufficient to come to sustainable and inclusive landscapes.

FTA through its Flagship 3 on Sustainable value chains and investments – is now leading a study on “Scaling of innovative finance for sustainable landscapes”. This study is currently object of an open, public eDialogue, where anyone interested can comment and influence the content of the report. The aim is to introduce a greater level of inclusiveness in the identification innovations in sustainable finance that can indicate pathways and methods to overcome context-specific barriers. The draft study – and all the comments received through the eDialogue – will be further discussed during this session.

The session will also showcase, major lessons learned from panelists. Each member will be able to illustrate how they have dealt with some of these barriers in their experience and propose ways forward towards that bridge the gap between mainstream the finance trying to apply inclusiveness and sustainability criteria in decision making, and smallholders in the landscape. The diversity of the panel will ensure that both point of views will have a voice. Panelists will capitalize on the results of the prior eDialogue, where they will have had the opportunity to confront themselves with different stakeholders in an on-line debate, on a number of critical questions.

Simultaneous interpretation for panelists’ speeches will be provided where necessary.

The livestream will be recorded and made available after the event.

The opening plenary will seek to answer the main question of the day: “How can we move sustainable land-use financing into the mainstream?” Sustainable land-use investments are still too often considered as risky financial undertakings or perhaps some kind of “niche investment”. It is time to explore some of the options to mainstream sustainable land-use investments in the practices and tools of traditional finance stakeholders. Companies operating in land use (for example, agriculture and forestry) and in the financial sector, as well as governments, need to work together to achieve a transformational shift towards climate smart production models. Indeed, achieving the objectives of the U.N.Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 will be contingent on finding ways to manage agricultural land and forests more sustainably than at present. The opening plenary will discuss the conditions for a paradigm shift leading to the necessary increase of resources flowing towards sustainable land-use projects. The catalyst speakers will spark the energy and positive framing needed for a fruitful day of joint thinking and coordinated action.