This is the first time SCGV has used carbon finance to invest in child-focused climate adaptation in vulnerable communities over a long horizon. The partnership will see the law firms provide funding for carefully selected projects that deploy nature-based solutions to improve community resilience.
Climate change is having an adverse impact on children in Save the Children’s core mission areas of education, health and nutrition, and child protection. One billion children live in countries at extreme risk.
It is proposed the initial funding facilitated by the collaboration will be in agroforestry and reforestation in and around the tea-growing areas of the Nandi region in Kenya where child poverty, malnutrition and food insecurity are high, and climate change is impacting farmers.
The law firms taking part are effectively pooling their climate action budgets for greater impact. The eight firms include Freshfields, Clyde & Co, Slaughter and May, DLA Piper, Taylor Wessing, Charles Russell Speechlys and Simmons & Simmons.
As a co-benefit, the scheme will generate high integrity carbon removal credits for the firms funding it (verified and aligned to ICVCM’s approved standards and Core Carbon Principles). By committing to a ten-year funding window, the law firms allow Save the Children to plan a decade ahead, while establishing an ongoing revenue source to support children over the carbon projects’ 30+ year lifetimes.
Save the Children is the world’s largest independent children’s charity, operating in 116 countries. The project creates a replicable template for other law firms, professional services and businesses from other industries to support climate adaptation in priority locations where Save the Children works.
Paul Ronalds, CEO Save the Children Global Ventures, said: “This collaboration opens exciting new opportunities for Save the Children Global Ventures, the eight law firms and other private sector partners to help fill the massive funding gap for climate adaptation – and particularly the gap in child-responsive climate finance.”
Jake Reynolds, Head of Client Sustainability and Environment at Freshfields and Chair of The Legal Charter working group behind the project, said: “We have to raise our sights to higher value, longer-term, collaborative initiatives to get anywhere near the scale required to protect communities from climate change, especially those that lack the financial means to adapt.”
Amanda Carpenter, co-founder of Legal Charter 1.5, said: “Almost all economic activity has an impact on climate and lawyers are involved in much of it, including the governance, financing, contractual and regulatory architectures of business. Law firms can therefore play a vital role in supporting climate transition, both through their advice and the way they role model climate action. This ground-breaking collaboration demonstrates how law firms can support climate transition with new ways of working.”
How the programme works
The programme is being co-designed with local groups in collaboration with the Nandi County government, to introduce more sustainable farming practices, improve access to diverse food and income and address child rights issues in tea value chains.
It will encourage planting of more indigenous trees on farms to protect crops and diversify produce and the restoration of degraded riparian lands and wetlands back to native habitat for local wildlife. Participating farmers will be supported to access national and international markets that offer higher prices. Through improving household resilience, the project aims to reduce children’s exposure to climate shocks, poverty and resulting malnutrition.
Nandi is part of the Mau Forest complex, a critical watershed that feeds Lake Victoria, but has been heavily deforested. Through planting trees, the project will focus on restoring soil health and increasing water retention to benefit local farmers and the watershed. In addition, the trees are projected to sequester more than 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
SCGV has partnered with Carbon Neutral, a values-aligned carbon project developer with 20+ years of experience in biodiverse reforestation, to identify projects that strongly marry social benefits for children with climate mitigation.
The law firms’ funding will pay for delivery of the programme and the establishment of a community carbon project that will provide revenues over 30 or more years to benefit children. Social benefits will be measured according to Save the Children’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) approach, with the project underpinned by a triple bottom line of social, environmental and economic resilience. Freshfields’ sustainability team are advising the charity on the legal framework for the collaboration on a pro bono basis.
About Save the Children Global Ventures
Save the Children Global Ventures (SCGV) is Save the Children’s vehicle for impact investing and innovative finance, established to mobilise high-impact capital to solve some of the most pressing problems facing children. Nature-based solutions (NbS) hold significant potential to address climate change while empowering and benefiting indigenous peoples and local communities, however they are not being scaled fast enough. We are striving to change this by developing a portfolio of child-focused high quality and high impact carbon-financed NbS projects and driving initiatives to influence the carbon project ecosystem.
In March 2024, we launched the Nature-based Solutions for Children Initiative (NbS4C), responsible for leading carbon markets innovation across Save the Children globally. Since then, we’ve conducted scoping studies of carbon market opportunities across Asia and Africa, developed a pipeline of project concepts, raised grant funding for early-stage development of multiple projects and advanced negotiations for project financing deals.
For more information visit Save the Children Global Ventures (SCGV)
About Save the Children:
Save the Children exists to create lasting change for and with children. In more than 100 countries including the UK, we make sure children stay safe, healthy and learning, and change the future for good. We find new ways to reach children, no matter where they’re growing up. For a century, we’ve stood up for children’s rights and made sure their voices are heard.
For more information visit www.savethechildren.org.uk
About Legal Charter 1.5:
Legal Charter 1.5 is a high ambition initiative that has been developed collaboratively by a group of large commercial/corporate law firms to shift thinking and drive transformational change to mitigate the climate crisis. Almost all human activities which have material impacts on the climate either directly or indirectly involve the legal sector, therefore the sector has a vital part to play in leading meaningful climate action. Signatories commit to make the best contribution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the speed and scale necessary to restrict global temperature increases.
For more information visit www.legalcharter1point5.com
For media enquiries and interview opportunities contact imogen.ororke@secnewgate.co.uk and honor.grant@secnewgate.co.uk
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