22 February 2024
The Responsible Commodities Facility (RCF), an instrument from the 2018 Lab Cycle, has received the SDG Impact Finance Initiative (SIFI) award with support from Convergence Blended Finance to expand its operations.
The award is designed to fuel growth and scale by providing catalytic finance to impact funds that contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). RCF was one of seven initiatives to receive the award its demonstrated ability to catalyze capital from the private sector.
RCF provides financial incentives to produce soy in existing cleared and degraded lands in order to discourage further expansion of agricultural land in the Brazilian Cerrado. The instrument has made headlines in recent years, expanding its capital from USD 11 million to USD 47 million with the support of major commercial banks and winning Environmental Finance’s Structured Finance Deal of the Year and Impact Initiative of the Year – Latin America and Caribbean awards.
“We are very excited to be working with the SDG Impact Finance Initiative to propel the RCF towards our goal of growing the fund to $1 billion by 2030. This scale would allow the RCF to play a substantive role in supporting verified Deforestation and Conversion free soy supply chains. Our current focus is on engaging with more impact investors from food manufacturing and food service sectors, in order to realise the existing commitments we have from our senior investors.”
Steven Ripley, Sustainable Investment Management’s Director of Investor Engagement
