As Vale’s voluntary social investment instrument, Fundo Vale believes that joint efforts with its sponsor can achieve greater results and investments to deliver positive social and environmental impacts. Thus, it has contributed directly to Vale’s voluntary forest commitments and initiatives that seek carbon neutrality for the company through social and environmental innovation.
Through the lens of innovation, Fundo Vale believes in building alternatives that help reverse deforestation in the Amazon and other Brazilian biomes. Accordingly, its work with innovation will continue to play a central role in its institutional agenda, given its power to promote development that is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.
In 2020, Fundo Vale embarked on its Forests & Climate Impact Innovation Journey and launched the Agroforestry Challenge, its first acceleration program, in partnership with Vale Natural Reserve and supported by accelerator Troposlab. The program’s objective is to look for innovative solutions for the expansion of agroforestry businesses. The Agroforestry Challenge arose as an additional contribution in response to the challenge to restore areas on a large scale, in the context of our 2030 voluntary forest commitment. The program consists of six phases, including acceleration and validation of proofs of concept of social and environmental impact business models, in order to promote and strengthen this ecosystem with a focus on its positive social and environmental impacts. The Sense Lab joined the initiative to apply the C Model to the accelerated startups.
Fundo Vale has developed ever more ties with various areas of its sponsor. In this context, closer links with Vale’s Open Innovation Area have contributed to the development of innovative solutions, focusing on achieving the company’s sustainability goals. One of these collaborative initiatives is the challenge presented in the MINE Program 2.0. The challenge called “Carbon credits in projects to restore degraded areas and protect forests,” implemented in 2021, was the result of a partnership between Fundo Vale, the Vale Institute of Technology and Vale Natural Reserve. It will contribute directly to Vale’s 2030 forest and climate change commitments. The MINE Program 2.0 aims to help overcome global obstacles by training agents for change who can help us build the mining of the future, which is safer, cleaner and more efficient, as well as a more sustainable environment. It is one of the biggest open innovation programs in the global mining industry and it is how Vale intends to solve some of its most strategic challenges.
Through a partnership with the Certi Foundation, Fundo Vale has embarked on an innovation journey related to forests and climate, aimed at developing an array of solutions and implementing a pilot project. These actions will support the construction of an institutional innovation strategy in partnership with other areas of Vale, such as the Open Innovation Area and Vale Institute of Technology. The idea is to promote and strengthen innovative, enterprising initiatives with the potential to make significant contributions to Vale’s forest commitment and its goal of offsetting its carbon emissions.
