TERRAGRN: Regenerating Together
Project Developer
- TERRAGRN
Size
- Large
- ($1 billion)
Maturity stage
- Mature for investment
Country
- South Africa
Financing mechanism
Equity
Loan
Contact
Sundar Bharadwaj
sundar@terragrn.com
Link
Environmental benefits
- Landscape regeneration, near coal mines in Mpumalanga (South Africa)
- Chemical-free practices (no use of fertilisers) and no tilling
- Improved soil health, with plant & animal compost, manure, and necromass. Soil nutrients (NPK) enhanced with grid design.
- Improved groundwater, due to cover crops and mulching, for reduced erosion, evaporation, and run-offs
- Species diversity: 100+ local plant types
- Agroforestry grid design with varying root depths and canopy heights
- Improved bird and marine life through restoration of local wetlands
- Increased precipitation over time
- The bamboo from the agroforest will be sustainably (selectively) harvested to create energy solutions (hydrogen, bamboo pellets) to substitute the use of fossil fuels (e.g., coal, petroleum, diesels).
Community benefits
- Create 50,000+ jobs for local communities over 10 years, with skills development in sustainable land use and agroforestry, processing, and logistics
- Bring more women and young people (age 19–35) into the workforce
- Community will have shareholding in TERRAGRN and benefit from wealth creation
- Social infrastructure development in the region
Business model
TERRAGRN will lease unused degraded community land for 50-years and make lease payments to the community.
TERRAGRN will upskill local people and employ them in TERRAGRN’s agroforestry, processing, packaging, and distribution.
TERRAGRN will sustainably harvest bamboo, fruits, and crops to create energy, materials, and food solutions. The profit from these solutions will be used to repay debt and pay dividends to shareholders/ community.
The carbon removal credits (several million tonnes per annum) will be used to pre-finance this project, pay climate dividends to the community, and pay for insurance.
TERRAGRN is an innovative concept in:
- creating impact at scale by transforming degraded landscapes in the coal mining heartland into a green economy creating 50,000+ new jobs for local people
- delivering holistic and integrated nature-based solution with sustainable land use, and chemical-free practices to address climate change, food security, socio-economic development, and energy transition away from fossil fuels.
- delivering community-centric goals within our business model
- using carbon innovatively to pre-finance and manage benefits and risks.
Additionally,
- The project is validated by Gold Standard, IUCN, R20, and local science-based institutions.
- The project has support from local traditional leaders, municipality, provincial authorities, and the government’s agriculture, forestry, and environment department.
- In the pilot phase, we have baselined existing biodiversity and we are tracking well to regenerate 68 Ha of land, and plant approx. 90,000 plants (over 60 different species), and measure impacts
- We have employed 42 local people in our pilot (67% young people and 40% women)