Two years after the creation of the Latimpacto network, whose founding members include Fundo Vale, its first conference was held, between April 24 and 27. The in-person event took place in the historic city of Cartagena, Colombia, bringing together more than 350 participants from 25 countries, including representatives of impact funds, foundations, family offices and companies. The Brazilian delegation was one of the biggest, with more than 50 participants.
Fundo Vale’s partnership leader, Márcia Soares, was one of the speakers during a panel discussion called “Impact Minds: Standing Together.” She also took part in a ceremony to launch a publication called “Climate Action and Conservation in Latin America,” which was supported by Fundo Vale. Together with Juan David Ferreira and Greta Salvi of Latimpacto, Nathalie Gil of GIZ, Ana Carolina Szklo of Humanize and Ana López of CI Ventures, she spoke about the private sector’s engagement in commitments to reduce carbon emissions, combined with a positive social and environmental impact agenda.
“At Fundo Vale, we have been working in line with a logic we call ‘Impact Carbon,’ seeking to link our sponsor’s sustainability commitments in the areas of forest restoration and protection to the development of agroforestry impact businesses that are helping improve local people’s living conditions,” Soares said.
According to her, the report on climate and conservation is designed to highlight the climate change agenda. “There are many opportunities to harness in this area, but there is still a long way to go,” she said.
The conference was a moment of reconnection and inspiration for those already working on the topic, after a period of online-only events due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, field activities and the sharing of experiences among participants were prioritized. There were more than 10 visits to social and environmental projects, 11 collective sharing sessions on migration, gender, climate action, early childhood and social impact measurement, seven workshops on venture philanthropy and hybrid finance, a live demo, in which 11 initiatives about education, ecosystem development and rural development were presented, and the launch of the climate and conservation report.
“This conference is the first of its kind in Latin America. It was designed for these investors to connect to the reality of our cities and to move forward in the construction of new alliances. At Latimpacto, we promote knowledge and connections to obtain better results through greater rigor in investment, management, measurement and the way non-financial monitoring is carried out,” said Carolina Suárez, the CEO of Latimpacto.
Latimpacto is working to promote social and environmental investment in Latin America. Find out more at www.latimpacto.org.
You can find out more about the conference here: