Ymbu: When nature calls

After a brief moment offline (evidence below!) I'm delighted to start a new role as Chief Strategy Officer at?Ymbu Agroflorestal, a reforestation & sustainable wood project based in North Brazil.

The last 10+ years working in a number of advisory roles at?Founders Forum Group?was a once-in-a-lifetime learning journey that spanned hemispheres. However the lure of industry experience became impossible to resist.

Some have been curious about the fit between a London-born consultant and a Ceara-based reforestation project - 4,431 miles apart.

Retracing some steps, a relationship with Founders Pledge undoubtedly helped shine an insightful light on the intersection of sustainability and entrepreneurship, largely thanks to their climate change fund. In parallel, i've been spoilt with soft exposure to the green economy over the dinner table. Whether with an Aunt working at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew , or a sister forging a sustainability career at a global commodities giant.

Equally, Capability Brown is an 18th-century British gentleman that many are not familiar with. Yet the name echos perpetually in the ears of the family thanks to a garden-restoration-mad Grandmother who organised his memorial festival. This followed an OBE award that recognised work at the English Heritage , and as Chairman of the The Gardens Trust .

By osmosis or other, something must have stuck.

"By one estimate, Brown transformed more than half a million acres of land across at least 250 sites in England and Wales, burying fences in ditches and sinking roads, damming rivers or digging out lakes to create shimmering mirrors of water, studding the vista with clumps of beautiful trees or eye-catching follies and classical ruins."

Over the last year I've worked to build on the above, germinating the seeds in conversation with industry experts. This helped generate real conviction in the space, and I thought it would be interesting to summarise a bit of the learnings - hoping to catch-the-eye of others considering the same.

? to be read in < 5mins

In honour of my consulting chapter - I'll rely on one final, obscure acronym - TTT.

1. Total addressable market (TAM) - Why this?
2. Timing - Why now?
3. Team - Why Ymbu?

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1.TAM - why this?

?? The problem -?To mitigate the adverse impact of climate change, the recent?IPCC report?emphasises the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost half by 2030 to remain within the 1.5C temperature limit. Putting this in perspective, climate disasters today already lead to?>$1bn?of annual damages in the US. Carbon removal, whether through reforestation or other methods, is a crucial pathway toward remaining within these delicate global warming targets.

???? "The Saudi Arabia of Carbon" -?Differentiation is a fundamental to a successful tech venture, and in Brazil's case, the competitive advantages are abundantly clear.?Schroders?dubbed Brazil the "Saudi Arabia of carbon," and a recent study estimated that Brazil's biodiversity could supply?up to 48%?of the global demand for carbon in the voluntary sector by 2030. At which point,?Boston Consulting Group (BCG)?estimate the global market could rise to?$10-40bn.

?? Diamonds in the rough -?A 2021 study by?Coaliz?o Brasil Clima, Florestas e Agricultura, estimated that Brazil is home to?>90m?hectares of degraded farmland, with unsustainable farming practices making large contributions. This is >10x the number of productive hectares in England (8.9m).

The countries best-in-class agriculture empire was built on its rich biodiversity - the foundations are seemingly there. When paired with the annual ROI of restorative agroforestry projects (up to 28%) - one can understand why Brazil is such a strategic market for global natural capital investors.

?? How can Brazil lead global carbon removal efforts by reinvigorating the prime real estate sitting dormant?

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2. Timing - why now?

?? Nature tech -?The green opportunity in Brazil has been true for decades. However, the maturity of digital innovation is notable. Analysts predict nature tech investments will triple to?$6bn by 2030. The fusion of nature & tech is personified by?MOMBAK, a Brazilian reforestation platform founded by former execs at unicorns?Nubank?and?99. Diverse investors include non-profit?Conservation International?and?KASZEK, a leading LATAM venture capital fund.

In parallel, the last 6 months has seen global leaders?Pachama?(Originals) and?Terraformation?(Seed to Forest Accelerator) launch programs that democratize access to investment & software for early-stage restoration projects.

?? Capital flows?- 2022 saw a wave of Brazilian corporates & investors launch large-scale restoration initiatives. Biomas (a corporate consortium including?Santander) and?re.green?alone have collectively committed to restore 5m hectares (>25% the size of England).?Shell?also made a?$40m?investment in local project developer,?Carbonext.

On a global level, 2022 saw a?150%?increase in the number of biodiversity funds.?Unilever?($1bnAUM),?AXA?($500m),?Schroders,?HSBC?($650m),?Kering?(€140m),?Mercuria?($500m), have raised funds exclusively targeting nature regeneration—not social impact, ESG, or climate, but nature.

?? Industry governance - Governing bodies, such as?Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures?(TNFD), have fuelled positive market change with improved transparency for capital markets. The UK has just introduced the?biodiversity net-gain law, and former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has found a fit with a?board role?at climate startup?Cultivo. Outside of Europe, President Joe Biden’s recent budget proposal included a cool?$24bn?exclusively for conservation.

??How will these regulatory, capital, and innovation tailwinds crescendo into economic & environmental returns?

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3. Team - why Ymbu?

Recent?critique?of the carbon credit market shows that there are improvements to be made.?Research?from the team at?Terraformation?also highlights the real challenges of restoration projects - including seeds and data measurement. Despite these challenges,?Mathias and team have implemented a project that stood out from the crowd.

Alongside high-integrity principles that underpin the implementation, the relatively early-stage project has impressed on many fronts:

• ?? Portfolio approach, where the farm generates a diverse mix of income streams, including reforestation & carbon removal credits, sustainable wood, and value gains from degraded farmland restoration.
• ?? Full carbon credit verification?from?Gold Standard, which rigorously evaluated the project's integrity before permitting credits to be sold to a European corporate buyer.
• ?? Vertically integrated capabilities, which includes proprietary seed bank infrastructure with the capacity to grow > 2m seeds, addressing one of the primary challenges in the market today.
• ?? Entrepreneurial team, who have combined creative thinking with engineering execution to build a high-integrity project from zero in a desert region (Best evidenced by a home-made water desalination facility!).
• ?????? Local community impact?that created jobs in a region where employment opportunities are scarce, also offering unique up-skilling opportunities with the likes of Ernst G?tsch - "the creator of the real green revolution".

I have nothing but admiration for the adventurous spirit that took?Mathias?to Ceara 8 years ago to start this project from scratch. Looking to the months ahead of us now, the primary objective is: scale.

Together, I'm looking forward to learning a lot, whilst provoking debate on growth strategy, innovative business models beyond the core, the relevance of emerging AI tools, creative synergies with industry peers, and more.

?? Please reach out if you are a:

• ??Natural capital investor looking for deal-flow
• ?? Nature tech startup looking for an entrepreneurial client
• ?? Industry peer looking to exchange introductions
• ?? International stakeholder looking to better understand Brazil
• ?? curious individual keen to learn more about other opportunities with Ymbu

Find me at [email protected]

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PS. Some of you may notice a slight overlap between the above and a recent non-profit project I co-founded with Mathias and friends: NatureHub Brasil

> 400 global organisations and startups (50% in Brazil, 50% international) have been mapped across the nature-based solutions value chain, and have been packaged into a free 12-week learning journey (in Portuguese for now).

Check it out ??

#naturebasedsolutions?#agroforestry?#biodiversity?#brazil?#regenerativefarming?#carbonremoval?#naturalcapital?#naturetech