Aims and activities
Aims and questions
Aims and activities
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Environmental Funders Network (EFN) are launching a new three-year collaborative fund, aiming to unlock significant new funding for nature recovery.
The Environmental Finance and Learning Fund has been created in response to:
- Growing interest from funders wishing to learn more about environmental investing
- Greater need for ‘pathfinder' funding (early-stage, high-risk repayable finance) to support and scale a new wave of environmental initiatives.
The fund aims to build the environmental investment market by increasing the number of investors (and value of investment available) offering pathfinder funding to highly impactful environmental initiatives.
It is designed to help the funders who contribute to the fund to learn more about environmental investing, and to support them to make informed decisions about investing themselves directly.
It consists of:
A matched funding pot - participating funders have donated to the Environmental Finance and Learning Fund, and these contributions have been matched by Esmée 3:1. The pot will then be invested into innovative environmental initiatives over the next three years.
A peer learning programme - led by EFN and co-designed with participants, the learning programme will run for three years alongside the matched funding pot. It will give participants the opportunity to‘ learn by doing’, observing Esmée’s investment process in near real time from start to finish, as well as providing opportunities to speak to experts and to learn from each other.
How to get involved
The Fund closed on 31 March 2022 and is no longer open to new participants.
Esmée and EFN plan to share our learning from the Fund, and are happy to talk to anyone interested in finding out more about the model. Please email Tom Colborne at Esmée with any questions.
Who's involved
Who was involved
Who was involved
The Fund was developed by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Environmental Funders Network. A list of current participants is available on Esmée's website.
The Fund raised a total of £679,000 from 15 donors, significantly above our minimum target of £400,000. With Esmée’s matched funding at 3:1, we have £2,716,000 to deploy in environmental investments over the next three years.
Learning and Resources
In June 2022 Esmée published some initial insights of the Environmental Finance and Learning Fund.
