Terra Natural Capital Launches to Invest in Scaling Carbon Projects and Natural Assets

ZUG, Switzerland, January 17, 2024 – Terra Natural Capital announced its launch today as a dedicated environmental commodities investment company. Terra was founded with the mission of delivering flexible financing solutions for carbon removal and reduction projects and providing both public and private organizations with access to high-integrity carbon credits at scale. The Company is backed by Pala Investments and Bain Capital Partnership Strategies, both long-term capital providers with substantial experience in real assets, commodity markets, and decarbonization investing.

To-date, Terra has invested across nature-based carbon removal projects globally, including mangrove restoration and afforestation, and holds long-term supply of the projects’ carbon credits.

“Terra is built on three key pillars: legacy, accountability, and creativity, with the mission to apply these values to scale carbon markets,” said Stephen Gill, Co-Founder at Terra. “As 2023 proved to be the earth’s hottest year on record, we believe the need for innovative financing solutions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions is at its most urgent today. We look forward to working with Bain Capital Partnership Strategies to utilize our combined institutional knowledge and expertise in project finance to help address the challenge.”

Applying innovative financing structures, Terra is focused on providing the critical capital investment needed to deliver carbon projects across the globe that service the next generation of carbon markets. The Company’s immediate investment pipeline continues to be centered around nature-based carbon removal as well as high-impact energy efficiency projects that will enable access to consistent, high-quality credits in the near-term and at meaningful scale. The pipeline emphasizes projects with strong co-benefits, such as support of local communities, ecosystem restoration, and enhanced biodiversity outcomes. The Company will also focus on projects in jurisdictions with advanced carbon market policies and governance, in recognition of the increasing role carbon crediting projects will play under domestic compliance carbon markets and mechanisms under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

“Traditional banks and financiers are largely still absent from these markets,” said Erica Vertefeuille, Co-Founder at Terra. “We believe there is a compelling, generational opportunity for Terra to step in to support best-in-class project developers and facilitate the scaling of carbon credit markets and natural capital as an asset class.”

Natural climate solutions and carbon credits are a critically undersupplied climate strategy. Bottom-up analysis of the 2,000 leading global companies suggests the voluntary carbon market could provide demand for up to 2.6 gigatonnes of carbon credits by 2030 with natural climate solutions accounting for a third of the mitigation required by 2030 to keep global warming below 2°C1.

“We are excited to enter this partnership with the Terra team to invest in large-scale, high-integrity carbon reduction projects,” said Michael Schor, Managing Director at Bain Capital Partnership Strategies. “We look forward to supporting Terra as it addresses the acute shortage of high-integrity carbon credits. By providing flexible, institutional project finance, Terra will serve the accelerating global demand coming from more forward-thinking organizations.”

Terra founders Stephen Gill and Erica Vertefeuille have backgrounds in environmental sciences and have spent their careers in the investment industry providing innovative and flexible project and trade financing solutions across a broad range of decarbonization and energy transition businesses.