Environmental Finance and Learning Fund

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Environmental Funders Network (EFN) are launching a new three-year collaborative fund, aiming to unlock significant new funding for nature recovery.

The Environmental Finance and Learning Fund has been created in response to:

• Growing interest from funders wishing to learn more about environmental investing
• Greater need for ‘pathfinder' funding (early-stage, high-risk repayable finance) to support and scale a new wave of environmental initiatives.

The fund aims to build the environmental investment market by increasing the number of investors (and value of investment available) offering pathfinder funding to highly impactful environmental initiatives.

It is designed to help the funders who contribute to the fund to learn more about environmental investing, and to support them to make informed decisions about investing themselves directly.

It consists of:

A matched funding pot - participating funders have donated to the Environmental Finance and Learning Fund, and these contributions have been matched by Esmée 3:1. The pot will then be invested into innovative environmental initiatives over the next three years.

A peer learning programme - led by EFN and co-designed with participants, the learning programme will run for three years alongside the matched funding pot. It will give participants the opportunity to‘ learn by doing’, observing Esmée’s investment process in near real time from start to finish, as well as providing opportunities to speak to experts and to learn from each other.