Climate Change Data

Environmental Metrics

ESG Focus Areas

• Sustainability
• Climate change
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I)

Environmental Achievements

• Portfolio’s net operational carbon emissions were ~40,000 tCO₂ e (gross emissions were ~69,000 tCO₂e).
• Supported reductions in carbon emissions and improved resilience by helping farming communities adapt to changing weather patterns.
• Working with investees to understand climate-related impacts, support adaptation and resilience and identify opportunities for emission reduction and nature positive outcomes.
• Implementing regenerative agricultural principles leading to more efficient production, better resilience to climate change and reductions in carbon intensity of food production.

Social Achievements

• Employees working in AgDevCo’s portfolio earned more money than in 2022.
• Over 2.4 million small-scale farmers, traders, and customers linked to markets by our investees.
• Investees created opportunities for over 1.7m men and 707,000 women farmers.
• Increased the proportion of investee companies with anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies from 83% in 2022 to 100% as at June 2024.
• Increase in the proportion of women in senior management roles from 22% in 2022 to 26% in 2023.
• Investee businesses engaged more women smallholders in the value chain than in 2022.
• Trained over 12,000 smallholder farmers (49% women) on climate-smart, good agricultural practices.
• Improved the capacity of nearly 2,000 investee staff members (40% women) by strengthening the processes and systems in place at 16 investee companies.

Governance Achievements

• Strengthened our governance policies, procedures and systems.
• Undertook an evaluation to assess the board’s overall performance and effectiveness.
• Welcomed Nev Davies as an independent director to the board.
• Board approved a strategy on improving Black African representation across our portfolio.
• Board approved a revision to our Investment Policy, enabling us to deploy up to 10% of our capital in upper middle-income countries.

Climate Goals & Targets

Environmental Challenges

• Geopolitical tension, pressure on global supply chains, extreme weather, rising commodity prices and a cost-of-living crisis.
• Challenges in accessing hard currency.
• El Niño weather patterns affecting some countries.
• Increased prices and reduced availability of key agricultural inputs.

Mitigation Strategies

• Most investee companies remained resilient, continuing to operate and achieve positive social and environmental impact while generating returns.
• Consolidating profitability, enabling us to expand our ability to generate positive impact at scale.
• Raising additional capital to ensure continued support of impactful business.
• Engaging with investee businesses to support adaptation and build resilience in their businesses and supply chains.
• Implementing regenerative agricultural principles.

Supply Chain Management

Responsible Procurement

• Supply chain Analysis of supply chain risk is part of AgDevCo’s responsible investment framework and the requirements of the IFC Performance Standards.

Climate-Related Risks & Opportunities

Physical Risks

• Extreme weather events
• El Niño

Transition Risks

• Regulator-imposed carbon taxes and tariffs
• Changes in market sentiment with respect to air freighted goods

Opportunities

• Regenerative agriculture and natural capital can play in emission reduction and carbon sequestration

Reporting Standards

Frameworks Used: The Operating Principles for Impact Management, The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), The IFC Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability, The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)

Third-party Assurance: Anthesis-Climate Neutral Group

Awards & Recognition

• 2023 “Practice Leader” in BlueMark’s fourth annual Making the Mark report