Portfolio Goal

This portfolio aggregates projects to reach a scale that will attract investors and is intended to provide the investment package and enabling environment to support communities to reach an adequate and equitable standard of living in harmony with the natural environment and resilient to a changing climate.

Return on investment will be measured using a “three returns” framework:

A return of coastal resilience.

Key to building climate mitigation and adaptation.

A return of biodiversity and fish stocks.

Key to ensuring on-going economic value and food security.

A return of thriving
communities and investment.

Key to attracting resources and delivering sustainable development.

The unique value of this portfolio approach

1. Quality Assurance

WWF is the largest conservation organisation across the globe and along with our partners, we represent credible leaders in the fields of conservation and sustainability.

Each project has been selected based on an evaluation of the following:

Contribution to improved coastal resource management.

Contribution to social and economic development of coastal communities.

Investment potential.

Replicability.

Scalability.

Stage of development.

Social and environmental safeguards*.

Environmental and Social Safeguards Framework

*WWF’s Environmental and Social Safeguards Framework (ESSF) provides an institutional mechanism to manage the environmental and social risks of WWF’s work, helps deliver better conservation outcomes, and enhances the social well-being of local communities in the places where WWF operates. WWF’s safeguards framework is designed to address a broad range of environmental and social risks, mindful of the different challenges and needs in different parts of the world. It systematizes good governance practices to achieve human rights, transparency, non-discrimination, public participation, and accountability, among other goals. The community-led enterprises promoted through this portfolio comply with this framework and gives an investor the assurance that they aim at delivering both conservation and social benefits.

2. Solving the issue of scale

This portfolio aims to solve the challenge of scale required by investors by providing a means to aggregate projects across locations and thematics into a ticket size suitable to a wider range of private and public investors.

An aggregated approach across a portfolio of multiple small-scale projects spanning geographies, can create an investment proposal of sufficient scale to improve the attractiveness to a wider range of investors and minimise the relative transaction costs.

3. Impact measurement

Projects within this portfolio contribute to all or some of these impact metrics.

Mobile phone and GPS technology supports enforcement, provides a means for communities and authorities to collect much needed data for fisheries management, and enables effective mapping and planning of conservation and restoration efforts. The technology as well as the data generated have a value that can be converted into income generation.

By adopting sustainable practices fish stocks will recover and produce more sustainable seafood. Further by providing sufficient cold storage and supply chain facilities post-harvest loss is reduced and income therefore increased.

This diversifies community income which in turn reduces pressure on natural resources and builds socio-economic resilience.

Restored coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests, sea grass and coral reefs increase flood and storm protection and build climate resilience.

Carbon stocks from restored or conserved ecosystems can be monetized through the sale of carbon credit and/or provide certified emission reduction outcomes (if conditions of leakage and additionality are met).

Solar home systems and solar-powered cooking stoves offer renewable energy, making the unsustainable harvest of mangrove fuel-wood or mangrove charcoal production redundant. The sale of renewable energy into these communities provides an investment opportunity, but the availability of energy also further fuel the economic potential of a community in many ways e.g. to provide energy to start up a business, to gain access to the internet, to support health and education and access to resources etc.