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Hamerkop launches the Bridging the Disconnect

As part of London Climate Action Week, HAMERKOP Climate Impacts, together with The Art of Forests, iNovaland® have published a new report: Bridging the Disconnect: Why Nature-Based Carbon Projects Struggle to Access Capital.

The report draws on conversations with project developers across 4 continents and explores what many in the market know, but rarely discuss openly: the "missing middle".

Investors want offtake agreements before committing capital.

Buyers want mature, de-risked projects before signing offtakes.

Developers need capital to get projects mature enough to satisfy both.

Everyone is waiting for someone else to move first.

Meanwhile, planting seasons don't wait.

Communities don't wait.

Project costs don't wait.

One finding stood out to me: the projects most aligned with what the market claims to value, strong ecological outcomes, long-term community engagement and high integrity, are often the ones carrying the greatest financing burden.

If we want more high-quality nature-based projects, we need to spend less time talking about credit quality alone and more time addressing how projects are financed before the first credit is ever issued.

The market's biggest challenge may not be finding good projects.

It may be helping them survive long enough to succeed.

SOURCE: HAMERKOP