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Rupert approves.
From our logo to our mascot (Rupert the Rhino) to our #ChargeForward tagline, you don’t have to look far to find evidence of our love for rhinos here at Idea Financial.
Of course, we’re also fans of innovative, practical, effective financing solutions.
So, you can imagine our delight at the news that the World Bank—via its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)—has created a five-year $150 million Sustainable Development Bond designed to raise money to protect and increase endangered rhino populations at the Addo Elephant National Park and the Great Fish River Nature Reserve, both in South Africa.
Here is how this Wildlife Conservation Bond—AKA “Rhino Bond”—will work, according to a recent World Bank press release:
The WCB is a first-of-its-kind, outcome-based, financial instrument that channels investments to achieve conservation outcomes – measured in this case by an increase in black rhino populations. Rhinos are considered an umbrella species that play a crucial role in shaping entire ecosystems on which countless other species depend. Through the WCB, investors are supporting the financing of activities to protect and grow a critically endangered species with clear conservation targets, contributing directly to biodiversity, and bringing jobs to local communities through the creation of conservation-related employment in a rural and underserved region of South Africa.
Essentially, if you purchase a bond and the rhino population increases—as confirmed by the Zoological Society of London—then that is the “profit” upon which your “success payment” will be based. It’s a performance-based bond, in other words, but one measured in biodiversity boosting rather than dollars and cents.
“The Rhino Bond is a groundbreaking approach to enabling private sector investment in global public goods — in this case biodiversity conservation, a key global development challenge,” World Bank Group President David Malpass says in the aforementioned press release. “The pay-for-success financial structure protects an endangered species and strengthens South Africa’s conservation efforts by leveraging the World Bank’s infrastructure and track record in capital markets. Importantly, it can be replicated and scaled to channel more private capital for other conservation and climate actions and development objectives around the world.”
Want to diversify your portfolio while helping to save an endangered species?
Considering buying a Rhino Bond—for your investment account, for the planet, and for Rupert!
