Photo by Carly Keech, Minderoo Foundation
By Minderoo Foundation
The Minderoo Foundation is a modern philanthropic organisation founded by Andrew and Nicola Forrest. We are based in Perth, Western Australia and our 11 initiatives are dedicated to addressing some of the world’s most pressing issues, including eliminating modern slavery, significantly reducing plastic waste and returning the oceans to their flourishing state.
Our Flourishing Oceans, Fire and Flood Resilience and Plastics initiatives directly respond to the impact of climate change through their programmes and partnerships. As a recent signatory to the International Philanthropy Commitment for Climate and the United Nations Race to Zero, we demonstrate our resolve to tackle climate change. We are doing this both within our own operations by leveraging our influence with partners and by providing assistance in the communities in which we operate.
Increasingly, we are also using investment as a tool to unlock business as a force for good. In 2021, Minderoo established an AUD 250 million Strategic Impact Fund (SIF). The fund enables Minderoo to accelerate impact by investing in organisations aligned with our initiatives, as well as achieve a financial return. We want to show investors that mobilising private capital to pursue transformative social and environmental change is the way of the future.
The Strategic Impact Fund was initiated and championed by Andrew and Nicola Forrest, as the driving force and founders of the Minderoo Foundation. It is an extension of their personal philosophies and the learnings from Tattarang, their private investment group that has long since invested to drive strong environmental and social outcomes. Both Andrew and Nicola strongly believe that investment can be used as a force for good and a means to end some of the biggest global challenges such as modern slavery, plastic consumption and unsustainable fishing.
While the Australian impact investment market is growing rapidly and is projected to grow to AUD 100 billion over the next five years, identifying impact-ready companies is challenging. Minderoo has learnt that completing robust due diligence beyond the financials is essential. Our impact investment team engages with the subject matter experts in each initiative to build a well-rounded understanding of the organisation, the field they seek to change and their approach to impact.
Reporting demands on funded projects are more rigorous due to the impact requirements and financial return. As the pipeline has grown, Minderoo has adopted a more hands-on approach to ensure that impact is embedded in the organisation and that the projects have the tools and systems to report on it.
Some of our recent Strategic Impact Fund investments with a direct and indirect climate alignment include:
- Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR) – GFCR is a fund utilising blended finance instruments to mobilise action and resources to protect and restore coral reef ecosystems. The GFCR seeks to invest in businesses in sustainable aquaculture, circular economy and eco-tourism.
- Circulate Capital: Singapore-based Circulate Capital is an investment management firm dedicated to the development of a circular economy to combat plastic pollution through investments in high-growth opportunities at the nexus of climate-tech and plastics recycling infrastructure.
- Cruz Foam: A materials company looking to replace single-use plastic foam products with naturally derived alternatives. To date, Cruz Foam has focused on soft and firm foams, and Minderoo has invested to help the company provide viable replacements to expanded polystyrene (EPS) and expanded polyethylene (EPE). Cruz Foam’s product has a lower greenhouse gas emissions footprint than fossil fuel plastics, and can avoid damage to the environment through natural degradation.
The GFCR investment, for example, complements Minderoo’s Flourishing Oceans initiative which recently announced the world-first selective breeding of Ningaloo corals off Western Australia’s North West coast in response to predicted mass coral bleaching due to rising sea temperatures. Both Circulate Capital and Cruz Foam align with our Plastics initiative which envisions a world without plastic pollution.
Since SIF’s inception, we have committed more than AUD 80 million of our AUD 250 million allocation. While searching for investment-ready opportunities, we have observed a gap in the market, particularly in Australia. Organisations needed financial support to become impact investment ready. To address this, Minderoo recently set aside AUD 3 million for a Catalytic Capital Fund, which seeks to use sub-commercial capital to help convert highly impactful opportunities into investable proposals.
The intention is for the funds to be deployed through innovative financial instruments, such as first-loss capital or low-interest repayable grants, that can crowd in greater flows into impact investing or by funding feasibility assessments to progress ideas with high potential into investment-ready opportunities.
In addition to various investment modes, we are seeking to catalyse the impact investing market by raising awareness of what is possible and generating more interest in the market. In the past 12 months, Minderoo has sponsored a series of workshops to help other foundations consider impact investing as part of their strategies.
Minderoo recognises that we must all do more in the climate space and our priority will be ensuring our boards and investment committees stay informed of their impact and their opportunities.
We are striving to integrate climate action into the design and implementation of our programmes of work, including reducing our own emissions profile and minimising the climate impact of our operations. We are contributing to a rapid and just transition to a net zero economy through our own actions as well as our investments and we hope to inspire more organisations to do the same. Please feel free to reach out to us if you want to learn more.
To get first access to our blogs every month, subscribe to our newsletter here.