Biodiversity

The purpose of the initiative is to encourage the innovation and entrepreneurship environment in the Amazon, focused on bioeconomy solutions aimed at forest conservation. The project is broken down into programs that range from entrepreneurship training and business origination to business strengthening and connection in more mature stages with the market.

The project aims at generating solutions that add value to biodiversity, training the forest communities in up-to-date technologies for the cocoa and cupuaçu value chains, so that the quality of the products is improved and, therefore, their added value is increased.

The project is aimed at providing fast internet to one million people, who live in over 5,000 communities of forest people by 2025. To this end, the project offers the required infrastructure, including kits for the generation of electric energy through photovoltaic systems, to provide communities with access to health services, education, entrepreneurship, culture and ancestry, and others.

In 2023, we cooperated alongside FEBRABAN to develop bank self-regulation SARB 26, a regulation that sets out guidelines to help the financial sector manage risks associated with illegal deforestation in the beef production chain. After the publication of this regulation, we started an internal process to design a protocol for standardizing negotiations with clients of this industry and fostering compliance with these guidelines and advancing sustainable practices in the agribusiness sector.

In 2024, we announced our commitment to the Innovative Finance for the Amazon, Cerrado and Chaco (IFACC), the pact launched by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA), the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2021. Its goal is to increase loans and investments aimed at sustainable livestock and soy production, agroforestry systems and the sustainable management of non-timber forest products in the Amazon, Cerrado and Chaco biomes. As a signatory, we are committed to leveraging and pursuing the collective goals of IFACC, which are aligned with our ESG agenda and purpose of strategically supporting our clients’ transition to low-carbon agriculture, by providing knowledge, experience and financing capacity.

The Reverte (Reverse) program is an initiative of Syngenta and, in the Cerrado biome, in partnership with the Nature Conservancy (TNC), aimed at the technical and financial promotion to covert degraded pasture areas into arable areas in the Brazilian Cerrado. As partners of the Reverte (Reverse) program, we provide exclusive financial solutions suited for agricultural producers to carry out the project. In 2023, R$649 million were disbursed to convert 101,000 hectares of degraded pasture areas into cropland. Since the beginning of the program, roughly R$1 billion has been disbursed for the conversion of 160,000 hectares.

We support the Bioeconomy Knowledge and Innovation Observatory, of the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV), which seeks to strengthen the production of academic knowledge and its practical application. This interdisciplinary study center is focused on the production of applied content, technical training and dissemination of information on topics such as climate change, agriculture, land use and biodiversity, contributing to fostering a more sustainable and low-carbon economy.