This year’s slogan: “Driving change for greater impact: making standards work for the people, places and issues that matter”

The ISEAL Alliance’s Global Sustainability Standards Conference is the leading annual event for advancing credible sustainability standards and certification. This year’s conference took place in May 2018, in São Paulo, Brazil, and representatives of the eco.business Fund and Development Facility played an active role.

The ISEAL Alliance is an international membership association for enhancing and implementing credible sustainability standards across multiple industries. Under the slogan, “Driving change for greater impact: making standards work for the people, places and issues that matter,” the organization brought together more than 200 key players from around the world to share learnings from innovative projects, observe growing trends, and explore how sustainability standards can work best for all stakeholders. Vigorous debates were held on topics such as deforestation, living income, and forced labor. 

The eco.business Fund was represented by Sandra Abella, Director at fund advisor Finance in Motion. Ms. Abella gave a “lightning talk” in a plenary on the second day of the conference that showcased innovations in sustainability tools, products and partnerships, and which explained how the fund’s operations are informed by data from standards. She closed by inviting representatives of participating sustainability standards to join forces with the eco.business Fund to further their shared goals. The eco.business Development Facility also presented two technical assistance projects that use innovative technologies for mapping sustainability practices and an impact assessment project currently in the implementation phase. 

The event offered a unique opportunity to strengthen networks with, and benefit from the experiences of, over 200 sustainability experts and practitioners across 24 countries and six continents.

About the eco.business Fund

The eco.business Fund is spearheading the promotion of business practices that contribute to the preservation of biodiversity, the sustainable use of natural resources, and climate change mitigation and adaptation through private enterprises. By providing financing for business practices that conserve nature and foster biodiversity, the fund seeks investments with both financial and environmental returns. The fund mainly provides loans to qualified local financial institutions that lend the money to eligible borrowers, which include holders of recognized certifications or those making improvements in line with conservation and biodiversity goals. The fund supports sustainable operations in the sectors of agriculture, fishery, forestry and eco-tourism. 

The eco.business Fund was initiated by Germany’s KfW Development Bank and Conservation International with financial support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It has received further donor support from the European Commission. The additional investor base comprises Dutch development bank FMO, the Austrian development bank OeEB and institutional investors such as sustainable banking institution ASN Bank, German ethical bank GLS, Calvert Impact Capital, and Raiffeisen Bank International. Finance in Motion, a leading impact investing company, is also an investor.

Operating hand-in-hand with the eco.business Fund, the eco.business Development Facility provides high-impact technical assistance at the sector level to local lending institutions and final borrowers.

For more information, please visit www.ecobusiness.fund and follow us on Twitter @ecobusinessfund.