New Fund by HSBC to focus on climate change issues

Initiative designed to achieve financial return with positive impact on world’s biodiversity

With the goal to be the world’s largest natural capital manager, HSBC Global Asset Management has entered into a joint venture with Pollination Group, a specialist climate change advisory and investment firm, to establish an asset manager dedicated to natural capital themes.

Christof Kutscher who will be named executive chairman of the joint venture said the new asset manager will target institutional investors with funds investing in a diverse range of projects that will ’preserve, protect and enhance nature over the long-term’.

A first fund, intended to be launched in the middle of next year, would look to raise up to $1bn (€830m) followed by a carbon credit fund at up to $2bn, HSBC GAM said in a statement.

It said that natural capital investing provided exposure to projects focused on nature, including sustainable forestry, regenerative and sustainable agriculture, water supply, blue carbon (carbon captured by oceans and coastal ecosystems), nature-based bio-fuels, or nature-based projects that generate returns from reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“To reach the goals set in the Paris Agreement we need to originate and fund new approaches that protect nature, at scale,” said Martijn Wilder AM, co-founding partner at Pollination.