Pan-African banking group Ecobank announced the launch of a $450 million Nature Bond – the world’s first ICMA-aligned Nature Bond issued by a commercial bank – with proceeds aimed at supporting farmers, sustainable agriculture businesses and water systems in markets across Africa.
According to Ecobank, the bond was designed to reach sectors often underserved by traditional conservation-focused financing mechanisms, including smallholder farmers, agri-processors, and water operators. While green bonds typically support a broad range of environmental objectives, Nature Bonds focus specifically on biodiversity, sustainable agriculture, land use, and water-related outcomes.
Africa is home to some of the world’s most important natural capital, including arable land, tropical forests, freshwater systems and biodiversity across hundreds of millions of hectares. According to Ecobank, however, private nature capital has not flowed to Africa at sufficient scale, with the continent receiving less than 3% of nature finance, despite hosting 25% of global biodiversity.
Ecobank said that the new bond seeks to help close this financing gap by supporting smallholder farmers adopting sustainable agricultural practices, agri-processors with verified deforestation-free supply chains, and water infrastructure projects that protect freshwater ecosystems. Unlike many conservation-focused financing vehicles, the Nature Bond is designed to finance businesses and communities whose day-to-day activities have a direct impact on environmental outcomes at scale, Ecobank added.
Proceeds from the offering will be deployed in 24 markets across Africa, with significant deployment in biodiversity-priority countries such as Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Ghana. As well, 81% of the eligible lending pool is allocated to countries where agricultural land-use change is the primary driver of biodiversity loss, helping direct capital to the areas where it can have the greatest environmental impact, the bank said.
The offering drew strong demand, with the orderbook exceeding $1.36 billion, 3.9x the original target size, enabling Ecobank to increase the transaction by $100 million and tighten pricing by 50 basis points.
The issuance was made on the London Stock Exchange and attracted commitments from both international and African investors.
Rachael Antwi, Group Head of Sustainability and ESRM, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated said:
“Nature finance will only scale in Africa if it is practical, measurable and connected to the real economy. This bond is designed to do that by linking international capital to eligible lending for sustainable agriculture and water infrastructure across 24 countries. It reflects the systems and standards Ecobank has built to ensure nature finance supports both environmental resilience and the communities whose livelihoods depend on healthy ecosystems.”
