The NESsT Lirio Fund is named Environmental Fund of the Year, Latin America by Environmental Finance.
Coffee producer, Cedros Café
The Lirio Fund provides debt capital to high-impact enterprises that are advancing job creation for individuals most in need and accelerating environmental conservation in the Andes-Amazon.
The Lirio Fund currently supports ten SMEs that provide livelihoods for over 3,300 smallholder farmers and workers, 47% of whom are women, in rural Peru and Colombia.
“We created the NESsT Lirio Fund to address the lack of capital for the missing middle.”
Through the Lirio Fund, NESsT provides SMEs with flexible capital options and return expectations that are aligned with the costs and risks they face.
The Lirio Fund has provided loans that range in size from $50,000 to $500,000 to SMEs that drive job creation and environmental conservation in rural communities in the Andes-Amazon, and sustainably manages 67,000 hectares of land. The portfolio also seeks to help farmers to adopt practices that conserve the forest and promote gender equity.
Brazil nut collector, RONAP
NESsT has created an impact framework that evaluates enterprises based on their ability to create or sustain jobs for people from marginalized communities and their commitment to environment conservation.
Greenbox worker collecting pineapple
One enterprise in the Lirio Fund portfolio is Greenbox, a social enterprise that transforms regions in the Andes-Amazon of Peru from cultivating coca plants for use in drug trafficking, to harvesting organic fruit for use in value-add products. Greenbox joined the NESsT Lirio portfolio in 2019.
“After a rigorous due diligence process, NESsT granted us funding when no one in commercial banks believed in us. It was like a miracle. We increased the size of our staff and improved our products. This accelerated our business growth.” – Juan Zaldívar, Chief Financial Officer, Greenbox
Greenbox worker
Farmers in this region are smallholders who practice subsistence agriculture, use limited technology, and sell their produce in the local market where prices are volatile each season. This volatility leads many farmers to seek out products like coca that provide higher margins, but which also carry a higher risk of violence and crime.
Greenbox works with these small farmers to source organic fruit that is then dehydrated and sold to clients internationally. Greenbox sets a minimum price for the year, improving cash flow for farmers, and enabling them to grow their business despite the peaks and falls in prices due to seasonality.
By the end of 2022, the enterprise had achieved a compound annual sales growth rate of 68%; this success allowed NESsT to offer Greenbox an additional loan in 2022.
“We want our growth to be reflected in the social and environmental impact we are generating. We support our farmers and give them technical assistance to encourage the adoption of good agricultural practices, improve crop yields, and promote organic farming.”
Members of the Lirio Fund – and all NESsT funds – are given business mentorship and technical training to promote growth in line with environmentally sustainable, inclusive practices.
One judge praised the fund for its “impressive impact not just on environmental conservation but also on the human side”.
NESsT also won the award for Social fund of the year, Europe for its Refugee Employment Initiative (REI). Learn more: https://www.nesst.org/refugee-employment-initiative