“Echoes for the Amazon” is an impact investment fund created by Festival Cordillera and Páramo Impacta and managed by NESsT to protect this vital global ecosystem, working alongside those who have been doing so for generations. With NESsT’s support, every transaction generates sustainable cycles of care, regeneration, and long-term impact.
NESsT, in partnership with IEB and CEPF, is launching Raízes do Cerrado: Strengthening the Sustainability and Impact of Socio-Bioeconomy Enterprises for Conservation, aiming to strengthen the socio-bioeconomy as a pathway to conserving the Cerrado, one of the most biodiverse biomes in the world.
Last month we joined several partners from across the IKEA Social Entrepreneurship network in Älmhult, Sweden, for three days of dialogue, exchange, and collective reflection on how we can better support social enterprises creating positive social and environmental impact around the world.
The Regional Indigenous Incubator for the Amazon is a pilot program that strengthens Indigenous-led enterprises driving social well-being and the conservation of Amazonian territories. It does so through an innovative governance and incubation model led directly by Indigenous organizations.
Indigenous-led enterprises in the Amazon are building livelihoods in ways that keep forests standing, drawing on knowledge that has guided life in relation to nature for generations. In the Ecuadorian Amazon, Kichwa-led organization Ruku Kawsay is just one example of how this works in practice, ensuring stronger livelihoods and a standing forest through the traditional Amazonian farming system known as “chakra”.
“Echoes for the Amazon” is an impact investment fund created by Festival Cordillera and Páramo Impacta and managed by NESsT to protect this vital global ecosystem, working alongside those who have been doing so for generations. With NESsT’s support, every transaction generates sustainable cycles of care, regeneration, and long-term impact.
The Regional Indigenous Incubator for the Amazon is a pilot program that strengthens Indigenous-led enterprises driving social well-being and the conservation of Amazonian territories. It does so through an innovative governance and incubation model led directly by Indigenous organizations.
Meet Lida Medina, Indigenous entrepreneur from Vaupés, Colombia. For years, she and the women of her territory occupied a secondary place in community life, with most of their roles centred on domestic work and limited participation in public spaces. One day, she realized that the change she was waiting for needed to come from within, and so she proposed something radically different: What if the women of her community came together, formed an association, and took ownership of their futures?
Born in Putumayo, Colombia, BioIncos co-founder Yuli Rodríguez has pride in the territory that raised her and the opportunity to create dignified work among the biodiversity that exists there. When they first started BioIncos and began sourcing cacay from local communities to transform it into a natural oil, very few producers believed they had a valuable product that others would be willing to purchase. Read their story here.
For over 50 years, FCC has worked to improve the livelihoods of small farmers in an area of Colombia greatly affected by armed violence. The NESsT Lirio Fund extends a revolving working capital line to this long-standing federation of coffee growers, complementing the strategic support it receives as part of the NESsT Acceleration Portfolio.
Beginning next week, NESsT will participate in COP30 Brazil, in Belém, Pará — a historic conference that will place the Amazon at the center of global climate discussions and mark the largest Indigenous presence ever recorded in UN negotiations. We will be there alongside entrepreneurs from our Amazon portfolio, bringing experiences born in the territories and showing that the most effective climate solutions come from those who live in and protect the forest.
In this article, Renata Truzzi, NESsT Chief Impact and Operations Officer, shares her reflections from Impact Minds 2025 by Latimpacto, weaving together her own insights with voices and stories from the event, showing how collective action, ancestral knowledge, and community-led approaches have the potential to shape the future of impact investing.
NESsT recently expanded its executive team with the addition of Catalina Rodriguez Hohman as Chief Financial Officer. Catalina, who is based in Cali, Colombia, has over 15 years of financial experience in national and multinational companies including EY, Deloitte, Russell Bedford International, and most recently One Earth Future Foundation (OEF).
