Climate emergency pressures companies to seek showcase in the Atlantic Forest

In the wake of the public relations effort of businessmen who want to get away from the taint of climate negligent, a pioneering project of private investment in the conservation and restoration of native forests of the Atlantic Forest is gaining survival in the south of Brazil, in Paraná.

Its launch took place two decades ago, well before the environmental agenda entered the list of priorities in the business world with the incorporation of terms such as ESG (an acronym for good environmental, social and governance practices). In 1999, three multinationals decided to invest US$ 18 million (R$ 102 million, without considering inflation correction) in a project to maintain native forest on the northern coast of that state.

Motivated by the international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, signed two years earlier in Kyoto, Japan, American Electric Power, Chevron and General Motors decided to offset their CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions in Brazil. At the time, they were already targeting the incipient carbon credit market.

Without the participation of the United States and with regulatory problems in the carbon credit trade between countries, the Kyoto Protocol became a dead letter. Only recently, thanks to agreements signed at COP26, the climate conference held in 2021 in Scotland, the proposal put in motion in Japan has a chance of moving forward.

Back then, however, frustrated, the companies gave up on incorporating Paraná’s natural reserves into their compensation programs.

However, the multinationals kept investing in the park, managed by SPVS (Society for Wildlife Research). The fund still allows the maintenance of 19 thousand hectares of Atlantic forest distributed in three nature reserves in the municipalities of Guaraqueçaba and Antonina.

Constituted through the purchase of farms that used to be used to raise buffaloes, the Papagaio-de-cara-roxa, Guaricica and das Águas reserves can store around 4 million tons of CO2 taken from the atmosphere through photosynthesis from their trees and soil.

The volume is equivalent to approximately half of the carbon dioxide generated annually by Curitiba, capital of the state.

The remaining amount of the fund is sufficient for the next five years, approximately, of managing the three parks. The expectation of raising new funds for the maintenance and expansion of reserves, however, has gained momentum with the maturing, in recent years, of the VERs (Voluntary Emissions Reductions) market, according to Clóvis Borges, executive director of SPVS .

This voluntary trade, created in parallel and amidst the setbacks of the regulated market between signatory countries of the Kyoto Plateau, allows companies to neutralize their emissions and trade surplus carbon sinks among themselves.

“What I’ve been getting from contacting companies is almost a race”, says Borges. “There is a disturbance in the market in relation to the charges [por neutralização de carbono nas cadeias de suprimentos de grandes empresas]. Strategic environmental positioning has to do with winning or losing a competition”, he says.

The developer Altma is an example of a company that sees opportunities in this new positioning. It invested R$ 300 thousand in the conservation, for five years, of a portion of 50 thousand square meters of the Águas Natural Reserve, in Antonina.

To make the decision, Altma considered the good reception of the residents of the first residential apartment building in Curitiba with fully neutralized CO2 emissions in the country.

Enough to offset 2,600 tons of carbon dioxide produced by the work, including the extraction of raw materials and transport of materials, the contribution accelerated sales of the enterprise.

Four months after launch, 65% of the 32 units were sold. “We expected to be with 20% of sales”, says Gabriel Falavina, director of real estate development at Altma.

“We were surprised by the market of customers who value this. We are already able to identify a niche that, in the process of buying a property, does not only look at location, footage and price, but also if the project corresponds to their values”, says Falavina. .

In the case of SPVS reserves, new compensation contracts are viable because the multinationals that made the project viable gave up claiming the credits generated by the forest.

Another 20 thousand hectares of rural properties in the surroundings have the potential to be acquired for conversion into conservation and reforestation areas.

The survival of the local ecosystem, however, needs more space and investment. It depends on the multiplication of similar projects in the area known as the Great Atlantic Forest Reserve. With more than 2 million hectares in a coastal strip of forest between the states of São Paulo, Paraná and Santa Catarina, the Grande Reserva is the last continuous remnant of the biome.

This is the size of the potential for generating business involving the neutralization and emission of carbon credits and the promotion of diversified businesses and environmental services in this stretch of Atlantic forest, says Borges.

Similar movements in other parts of the country are seen by activists as an opportunity for the biome to be a showcase for the corporate sector’s action in the fight against global warming.

In this direction, the pressure generated by the climate emergency on companies of different sizes and segments begins to be reflected in numbers.

Between 2019 and 2021, the SOS Mata Atlântica voluntary reforestation program increased 79% in seedling planting areas, which increased from 119 to 213 hectares per year.

Even without dealing with the impetus to deforest, the project also serves as a thermometer to measure the temperature of private investments for the conservation of the biome, whose fragments extend across 17 states that concentrate 70% of the country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

With the spotlight of the corporate world focused on the climate issue, the forest that is in the backyard of the largest Brazilian metropolises has the potential for valuable environmental projects for the business community because it is within the reach of the eyes of customers, suppliers and employees, according to Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto, director of knowledge at SOS Mata Atlântica.

“It is natural that companies want to neutralize their emissions closer to their business, to their customers. This is really happening at a greater speed”, says Guedes.

Business engagement driven by the climate agenda shows strength even outside the segments most targeted by public opinion, such as agribusiness and large industrial conglomerates.

After a campaign to donate seedlings intended for reforestation for employees in the first half of the year, later extended to customers, the canvas and steel roofing company Tópico Galpãos saw signs of strengthening in its relationship with its public.

Among some customers, the green gift has become a competitive advantage. Two large companies in the mining and industrial sectors, which have neutralization goals, wanted to know about the project for a market research on sustainable practices in their respective production chains.

“For these companies, it was a surprise to see an initiative that collaborates with their neutralization programs come from the bottom up, starting from a medium-sized company like ours”, says Arthur Lavieri, president of Tópico.

The first five months of the project resulted in the planting of 2,360 shoots of species native to the Atlantic Forest, which reforested more than 14,000 square meters of area —two soccer fields— around reservoirs in the Cantareira System, in Greater São Paulo.

For 2022, the company plans to neutralize its emissions by planting more than 4,000 certified seedlings, producing solar energy through photovoltaic films installed on the tarpaulins that cover the sheds it manufactures and rents, and by contracting transporters who prefer to use of biofuels.

Although encouraging, volunteer conservation projects are part of a journey in which, for every step forward, two steps are taken back.

The SOS Mata Atlântica Atlas, which compiles data from the foundation and the National Institute for Space Research, pointed to the loss of 13,000 hectares of native forests in the biome between 2019 and 2020. There are 130 square kilometers of deforestation that, for comparison, are equivalent to more than half (60%) of the Recife (PE) area.

In the period reported in the report, deforestation doubled in 10 of the 17 states covered by the biome.

“The Atlantic Forest has the potential for large reforestation projects. Just to comply with the Forest Code, it would be necessary to restore 5 million hectares. This is larger than the state of Rio de Janeiro”, says Guedes, from SOS Mata Atlântica.

“This is just to recover forests on the banks of rivers, which fix carbon, but do not generate an economy of forest products. We can have another 10 million hectares to generate business. The potential is huge, but the projects are still small.”