The new plant will provide 1.4 million people and 36,000 cocoa farmers with an additional income stream. Plus, CC Facility funds three impact initiatives | Stewardship Code
Blended finance investor Climate Fund Managers (CFM) and Société Des Energies Nouvelles, an Ivorian independent power producer specialising in biomass, have signed a $3m (€2.6m) deal to jointly develop the world’s first grid-connected cocoa waste-to-energy power plant in Côte d’Ivoire.
The new plant will produce 550 gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity from 600,000 tonnes of agricultural waste per year, which will provide 1.4 million people and 36,000 cocoa farmers with an additional income stream. The new facility, which will be built in Divo, a major cocoa-producing region 200km north of the capital Abidjan, will avoid some 300,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually for three decades, starting from 2029.
The project, CFM’s first in the world’s top cocoa producing nation, is being financed through its EU-backed Climate Investor Two fund, which is a blended finance facility focused on water, waste, and oceans infrastructure in emerging markets.
CFM, which was founded a decade ago, is a joint venture between Dutch development bank FMO and Sanlam InfraWorks, of the Sanlam Group of South Africa.
CC Facility
The Catalytic Climate Finance Facility (CC Facility) has provided $1.1m in funding and technical support to three high-impact initiatives in agriculture, manufacturing and small business development across Africa and Asia.
These include Emata SPV, a Ugandan fintech unlocking credit for climate-smart agriculture, Good Fashion Fund 2.0, which focuses on advancing sustainable textile manufacturing in South Asia, and Nordic Impact Funds, which supports social entrepreneurs tackling climate and development challenges in East Africa.
The CC Facility, which aims to bridge the climate finance gap by accelerating financial vehicles that can unlock private capital at scale, is run by Climate Policy Initiative and Convergence, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Affairs Canada, and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
“We are delighted to collaborate with three new cutting-edge concepts in climate finance. These mechanisms stand out from a competitive field of applicants as instruments with near-term potential to address severely under-financed sectors in countries struggling to meet their 2030 agenda objectives,” said Barbara Buchner, CPI’s global managing director.
Stewardship Code update
Pensions for Purpose, a UK-based organisation which promotes and supports the integration of impact investing and ESG considerations within pension funds, has raised concerns over changes to the UK Stewardship Code 2026 by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC).
The Code was published following a consultation with more than 1,500 stakeholders. The main aim of the Code, which will take effect 1 January, is to reduce the reporting burden for signatories, the FRC said.
“In seeking to create a code that accommodates a broad mix of legal frameworks, business models and market actors, the FRC has produced what looks like a lowest-common-denominator standard, not a leading framework. For those seeking to align capital with long-term impact, this version of the Code no longer provides a meaningful framework to do so,” said Charlotte O’Leary, CEO of Pensions for Purpose.
Pensions for Purpose is offering an alternative framework for pension schemes that want to integrate impact beyond the environment and across their mandates, governance and relationships.
