ESG

Environmental

Reservas Votorantim

A legacy of preservation

Our sustainability track record goes back to the 1950s when Votorantim acquired large forest areas in the Juquiá river valley of São Paulo state, in southeast Brazil.

Even then, while society was not discussing environmental conservation, we realized that protecting the forest was crucial to ensure the water supply for seven power plants that served our operations in the area.

This intuitive approach was the seed for what became an organized strategy and key priority for our businesses. In 2012, three of our portfolio companies transformed this 31,000-hectare territory into Legado das Águas, Brazil’s largest privately held Atlantic Forest reserve.

Three years later, our approach to sustainability evolved even further as we created Reservas Votorantim with a purpose: creating sustainable business opportunities and developing projects for the green economy.

The company now specializes in land management, biodiversity initiatives, carbon, and nature-based solutions for traditional businesses and the new economy.

Reservas Votorantim oversees the Legado das Águas – area where we develop a novel methodology to issue carbon credits from the Atlantic Forest, the Legado Verdes do Cerrado — a 32,000-hectare area where we developed the first carbon credit in Brazil outside of the Amazon — and the Pátio Caeté, a São Paulo-based biodiversity center specialized in planting inputs and focused on Brazil’s biodiversity.

Reservas carries out all these initiatives while developing its own business model, focused on providing environmental services and inclusive productive chains through social initiatives such as scientific research and sustainable tourism — ensuring that the population living in the vicinity of our conservation areas will be positively impacted.

Even then, while society was not discussing environmental conservation, we realized that protecting the forest was crucial to ensure the water supply for seven power plants that served our operations in the area.

This intuitive approach was the seed for what became an organized strategy and key priority for our businesses. In 2012, three of our portfolio companies transformed this 31,000-hectare territory into Legado das Águas, Brazil’s largest privately held Atlantic Forest reserve.

Three years later, our approach to sustainability evolved even further as we created Reservas Votorantim with a purpose: creating sustainable business opportunities and developing projects for the green economy.

The company now specializes in land management, biodiversity initiatives, carbon, and nature-based solutions for traditional businesses and the new economy.

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Carbon and biodiversity

Through Legado das Águas and Legado Verdes do Cerrado, Reservas Votorantim invest in the dynamics between carbon and biodiversity to carry out activities, research and actions focused on forest conservation.

The areas add up to 63 thousand hectares of preserved native forest, storing more than 20 million tons of carbon.

Reservas Votorantim intend to enhance initiatives and foster new methodologies that find in forest protection a viable alternative for maintaining biodiversity.

In partnership with CBA, the Company implemented the first REDD+ project in the Brazilian Cerrado. Reservas Votorantim also developed a methodology for Payment for Environmental Services (PES), including carbon, in the Atlantic Forest, pioneering the generation of carbon credits in these biomes.

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