Just Climate Closes $540 Million Agriculture Decarbonization Fund

Just Climate has closed its first Natural Climate Solutions fund at $540 million, with the money aimed squarely at the land use value chain and the emissions that come with industrial agriculture.

The final close of Natural Climate Solutions I (NCS I) drew its institutional anchor from CalSTRS, the California State Teachers' Retirement System, and its corporate anchor from Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund. The figure matters because it is committed capital, not a target — the fund has finished raising and is now in the business of deployment.

Who is behind the fund?

Just Climate was founded in 2021 by Generation Investment Management, the sustainability-focused investment firm chaired by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. The firm's mandate is narrow by design: it targets the highest-emitting, most off-track sectors of the economy and backs climate solutions that can radically reduce or remove emissions while still delivering what it calls attractive risk-adjusted financial returns.

The Natural Climate Solutions strategy itself dates to September 2023, when Just Climate unveiled a plan to scale products and services across the land use value chain that decarbonize agriculture and abate emissions through nature-based business models. NCS I is the first fund under that strategy. A second could follow; nothing has been announced.

Clara Barby, Senior Partner at Just Climate, framed the thesis in terms of the physical pressures already reshaping the sector.

She said: "Our Natural Climate Solutions strategy enables investors to back businesses that are tackling water scarcity, falling agricultural yields and waste. These are critical issues for the decade ahead, as resilience rises up the agenda for companies and capital markets. We believe investments made now have the potential to deliver attractive returns by transforming how we manage our land and resources."

Where has the money gone so far?

Five investments have been made from NCS I to date:

• NatureMetrics, a biodiversity monitoring startup
• Afresh, an AI-powered fresh food ordering and inventory management platform
• AgroStar, an India-based agricultural transformation company
• GreenLight Biosciences, an agriculture-focused biosolutions provider
• Tropic, a tropical seeds developer

The portfolio is spread across the food systems, water and waste segments of the land use chain rather than concentrated in a single commodity or technology. Food waste in particular sits at the intersection of the fund's stated concerns — Afresh attacks it at the retail ordering stage, where surplus is created rather than merely disposed of.

Gustavo Bassetti, Head of Natural Climate Solutions at Just Climate, set out the stage at which the fund writes cheques.

He said: "Our fund aims to back companies which have reached the growth-stage of their development, having already identified proven and scalable solutions across the food systems, water, waste and other land use change sectors. In an increasingly constrained market environment, we have capital ready to deploy into promising growth-stage companies."

That last sentence is the operative one. A closed fund with dry powder in a constrained capital market is a buyer's position.

What decides what happens next?

The milestone to watch is deployment pace: how quickly the remaining capital moves from five investments to a full portfolio, and whether follow-on rounds in NatureMetrics, Afresh, AgroStar, GreenLight and Tropic can convert proven solutions into measured emissions reductions across the agricultural value chain. The fund's returns will be judged on that conversion, not on the closing figure.

Five hundred and forty million dollars is now on the clock.