12Tree Finance wins Portfolio Award of the Initiative 20x20

12Tree Finance GmbH wins Portfolio Price of the Initiative 20x20
Country-led initiative acknowledges extraordinary efforts in developing profitable land restauration projects for institutional investors
Buenos Aires and Berlin, 25th June 2019: 12Tree Finance, a Berlin based asset manager and operator in the area of agroforestry, was awarded the Portfolio Award of the Initiative 20x20 at its Annual Partners Meeting, organized by the World Resource institute, and hosted by the Government of Argentina. The Jury praised the outstanding effort in creating a portfolio of profitable and sustainable land restoration projects in the very short time of two years. 12Tree group has more than 12,000 ha of agroforestry projects under management. The award follows an ambitious 2-year implementation cycle of institutional ag-investment in Central- and South America. Fifteen ministers and vice-ministers of Latin American and Caribbean countries, representatives of 12 impact funds, and 100 technical experts were present in Buenos Aires.

Since its inception in 2017, 12Tree already has established projects in Costa Rica, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Morocco, and Panama. Strong focus is on reforestation and transformative large-scale cocoa production in agroforestry systems with particular attention to sustainability and value-sharing with local communities. 12Tree has also launched the first sustainable cacao fund in the world, the €200 million Sustainable Agroforestry Fund in Luxemburg.
Richard Focken, CEO 12Tree Finance: “We are honoured to receive this prestigious award from the Initiative 20x20. It proves to us that solid funding from institutional investors can and needs to be combined with a strong ability to operate the farms and forestry projects. This leads to accelerated efficient deployment in land restauration, carbon sequestration and sustainable rural development. We continue to support the efforts of Initiative 20x20 and its partners to help countries achieve their goals.

Walter Vergara, Coordinator of the 20x20 Initiative Secretariat: “12Tree has created an impressive portfolio of sustainable forestry and agroforestry projects in a very short time frame, rivalled by none in our space. The ability to deploy and implement was impressive to our jury. We agree with 12Tree that our efforts need real-life business cases and the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean need visionary capital to reach their sustainable development and carbon goals and to transform agriculture into truly sustainable and resilient businesses.”
More on the projects: http://initiative20x20.org/restoration-projects/building-sustainable-farm-and-preserving-natural-forests-guatemala)

12Tree Finance GmbH
Französische Straße 147
10117 Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 206 142 990
Petra Kollmannsberger
petra.kollmannsberger@12tree.de

About 12Tree
12Tree Finance is a pioneer in making sustainable forestry and agroforestry projects investable for institutional investors. As an asset manager, 12Tree specializes in identifying, structuring, financing and managing agroforestry projects. With strong operational experience and capabilities, the long-term objective is to create new forest areas with a focus on Central and South America. All plantations are operated commercially to generate sustainable profitability and provide ecological and social benefits for local communities. In 2018 12Tree launched the Luxemburg SAF Fund, with a focus of modernizing cocoa farming. All projects have subscribed to the UN Sustainability goals and 12Tree is winner of the Portfolio price of the 20x20 Global Restoration Initiative: www.wri.org.
About Initiative 20x20: Initiative 20x20 is a country-led effort to change the dynamics of land degradation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Governments, regional programs, impact investors, and technical partners launched Initiative 20x20 in 2014 at COP20 in Lima, to contribute to restoring 20 million hectares of degraded land by 2020. Now that the goal has been reached and US$2.4 billion has been earmarked to finance projects on the ground, partners are working for the region to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 using restoration as a key approach to benefit economies, people and landscapes. Learn more at: initiative20x20.org. Press contact: Nadia Peimbert (nadia.peimbert@wri.org).

About the World Resource Institute (www.wri.org):
WRI is a global research organization that spans more than 50 countries, with offices in the United States, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and more. Our more than 700 experts and staff work closely with leaders to turn big ideas into action to sustain our natural resources—the foundation of economic opportunity and human well-being. Our work focuses on six critical issues at the intersection of environment and development: climate, energy, food, forests, water, and cities and transport.