THE IDEA

Thanks to a grant from the USDA Forest Service, Impact Finance Center is working to build the infrastructure to drive more investment capital to the social ventures (projects, nonprofits, small businesses, cooperatives, startups, and funds) working in the sustainable forestry sector. The Sustainable Forestry Investor Club, hosted by Impact Finance Center, has identified over 600 potential impact investors thus far.

 

HERE’S THE PROBLEM

Asset stewards interested in supporting sustainable forestry initiatives do not have a single source to find and vet opportunities. They also may not have knowledge or access to the broad range of impact investing tools available to make investments more impactful. The bridge between investors and investments is convoluted and broad, limiting meaningful investments that align with investor values. This leaves ‘money on the table’ that never gets invested into ventures that can build assets in and stimulate the sustainable forestry sector.

 

WHAT WE ARE DOING

We are connecting individually with these investors to better understand their climate/forestry investment interests and learn how we can support them with education to guide their impact investing journey.

Impact Finance Center is hosting biannual Sustainable Forestry Investor Club events to continue building infrastructure to support wood products value chains and provide a market for sustainable forest products. Past Sustainable Forestry Investor Clubs confirmed that there are both social ventures seeking investments and investors seeking to invest in the infrastructure, and investments have and are being made.

For example, RealtyMogul, a real estate investment crowdfunding platform, wanted to take on more “green” projects and presented the idea at an Impact Finance Center Sustainable Forestry Investor Club in 2020. After two years, developers of Ascent — a Milwaukee luxury apartment complex built from sustainable mass timber — approached RealtyMogul with the goal of raising $5 million in new investment and RealtyMogul found its perfect project.

 

WHY SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY?

There is a strong need for infrastructure to support wood product value chains. In the last 20 – 30 years, wood product markets have shrunk and the wood product infrastructure that supports those markets has declined. The loss of both markets and infrastructure, primarily for smaller diameter trees, has diminished both the economic well-being of rural communities and the ability of forest land managers to maintain healthy, resilient ecosystems. The scale of this need and the associated opportunity to improve the economic, social, and ecological health of rural communities is immense. A thriving, sustainable forest products supply chain requires new and innovative social ventures. These social ventures can drive the sector forward and provide markets for forests to be actively managed. The market conditions point clearly to sustainable business development once these social ventures get off the ground. However, they require financing to start.

 

THE INTERVIEWS