Canopy Capital

Canopy Capital was established in 2007 to drive capital to the rainforest canopy. The GCP helped catalyse it, and was founding partner and scientific adviser to the company.

Canopy Capital has created an investment template for first-movers in an emerging market for Ecosystem Services. These include rainfall generation, moderation of extreme weather, carbon storage and biodiversity maintenance.

In a nutshell, Canopy Capital is simply buying a licence to measure and then value the ecosystem services provided by the Iwokrama forest for a period of 5 years, by making a guaranteed yearly payment to the IIC. The benefits of these ecosystem services are sold just like an utility bill and the income is used to help make Iwokrama financially independent of institutional donors. 

These services benefit humanity at local to global scales. If they are lost, there will be severe impacts on food, energy, and environmental security.

Putting a price on these services is like taking out an insurance policy to maintain our life support system and has the potential to generate billions of dollars for forest-owning nations. 

Canopy Capital believes that the sovereignty of the forests it invests in should remain with the forest-owning people and nations that own them.