Imperative and Freepoint Commodities Execute Innovative Early-Stage Carbon Project Funding Debt Facility to Catalyze Investable, Large-Scale Carbon Projects in the Global South

Imperative Global (“Imperative”) and Freepoint Commodities (“Freepoint”) (together “Parties”) have executed an innovative structured debt facility for the financing of early-stage carbon project development activities (the “Facility”). The Facility, which is a sister facility to that which Imperative recently announced with CrossBoundary Group’s Fund for Nature, aims to accelerate the development of large-scale, high-quality carbon credit projects in emerging markets.

The Freepoint Facility makes further funding available to Imperative to conduct early-stage work on voluntary carbon market (“VCM”) projects in its pipeline in order to get those projects investment-ready for larger, private sector project funding. This allows Imperative to progress projects through the feasibly, design and planning phases, de-risking the projects before reaching final investment decision on full-scale project funding. This is of particular value in Imperative’s continuing efforts to bring to market high-quality projects in the underserved markets of the Global South.  The Freepoint Facility is intended to be repaid in carbon credits from Imperative’s portfolio.

This Facility, along with the sister CrossBoundary Group facility recently put in place, position Imperative to be able to move decisively, at pace, through the necessary project feasibility, design and planning work required to get high-quality, large-scale carbon credit projects to market.

The parties have already identified a project in Imperative’s pipeline – a 20,000 Ha mangrove restoration project in Southeast Asia – as the first of the projects for which the Freepoint Facility will be used, and first funding has been drawn for this project.

Imperative, Freepoint and Rubicon Carbon last year announced a US$500 million Project Funding Agreement for the funding of Imperative’s projects. The Freepoint Facility, along with the CrossBoundary facility, augment this Project Funding Agreement, increasing capital available for critical early-stage work in order to feed ultra-high-quality, investment-ready projects into the project funding platform with Freepoint and Rubicon.

“We are delighted to announce this facility with Freepoint, which complements the other financing tools that we have in place. We aspire to be thought leaders in the Carbon Markets, and this is another example of financial innovation that we believe will enable us to deliver on our promise of large-scale, ultra-high-quality projects.” said Scobie Mackay, CEO of Imperative.

“We are pleased to be able to continue to support Imperative bringing next generation carbon projects to market. We see a significant need for catalytic early-stage project level funding, which we view as having an outsized impact on driving action and creating high-quality carbon credits. This is an area of the market into which Freepoint is actively deploying capital.” said Andrew Hallett, Global Head of Voluntary Carbon at Freepoint.

About Imperative

Imperative is a mission driven, next-gen carbon project development company focused on producing ultra-high-quality carbon credits. Our mission is to design, develop, own and operate, at scale, the best carbon credit projects in the world and to optimize those projects using technology.

Imperative brings together multi-decade experience in carbon and conservation projects, carbon markets, major project execution and emerging market, cross-border structuring and finance. In order to drive the largest and best possible climate, sustainable development and biodiversity outcomes per dollar deployed, Imperative is focused on the Global South. Our project pipeline spans Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with a focus on native-species reforestation, mangrove restoration, large-scale agroforestry, and high- quality conservation projects.

Imperative firmly believes in the use of the voluntary carbon market to drive a just climate transition, with projects designed to create not only large-scale climate and biodiversity impacts, but transformative benefit sharing outcomes for local communities.

About Freepoint Commodities

Founded in 2011, Freepoint is a global commodities merchant providing customers with physical supply and logistics chain management and services, together with eco-friendly products. Freepoint actively pursues strategies to promote the transition to renewable energy, as well as investments in new technologies and businesses which support the energy transition. Freepoint’s voluntary carbon business provides a full suite of market solutions to VCM market participants, ranging from investing in high-quality voluntary carbon projects and platforms to providing structured solutions and risk management services that unlock value for our customers and stakeholders.