| Title | The Rimba Collective |
| Country/Location | Southeast Asia – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Papua New Guinea |
| Size of Investment | $19.5 million (as of 2025) |
| Revenue Model | Payments from supply chain companies for sustainability claims |
| Private Investment/Finance Structure | Up-front funding followed by yearly performance-based payments |
| Public/Philanthropic Investment | Co-funding from Partnerships for Forests |
| Env/Social Impact | Forest protection and conservation Peatland restoration Improved biodiversity Habitat restoration Improved livelihood of local community |
Summary
The Rimba Collective is a pioneering forest conservation and restoration financing mechanism led by long-term committed supply chain actors that purchase agricultural commodities, including palm oil. It aims to provide $1 billion over 30 years to projects within their sourcing landscapes, that deliver uplift to ecosystems affected by commodity production in Southeast Asia. Payments are linked to the companies’ procurement of palm oil, and projects are aggregated on a portfolio basis. In return for investing in the projects, members of the Collective can claim for their sustainability commitments from the projects’ verified outcomes. The Rimba Collective itself is impact-driven and does not seek a return beyond meeting its own costs. It has piloted this model across landscapes that are impacted by palm oil production but is now exploring other commodities such as wood-pulp with the fashion sector.
Background
Companies whose supply chains suffer from high deforestation risk are facing increasing regulatory and consumer pressure to make those supply chains more sustainable, and account for any negative impacts.
Commodity production has a significant impact on natural landscapes. In Southeast Asia, the challenge of deforestation linked to commodities is particularly pressing – roughly 70% of deforestation in the region is commodity-driven [1]. Indonesia suffers significantly from deforestation and is the largest palm oil producer, followed by Malaysia.
The Rimba Collective is a private sector-led mechanism that was developed by Lestari Capital, a natural capital firm, in response to these issues. Recognising the connection between natural capital conservation and supply chain stability the mechanism channels funds from companies using palm oil into a portfolio of conservation and reforestation projects across Southeast Asia, with payment levels tied to the volume of commodities they procure.
“While there are a lot of corporate commitments to deforestation, we need a tangible way for these companies to contribute to a nature positive agenda. And, while a company’s singular impact might not be significant, we have developed a model that enables companies to act collectively,” says Michal Zrust, Co-founder and Chief Executive Director at Lestari Capital.
Michal Zrust started developing the idea for Rimba Collective in 2020 alongside his work with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The majority of the required funds to develop the concept was provided by corporate partners, with initial seed funding provided by Partnerships for Forest. Lestari Capital, a private company that connects conservation projects with corporate finance, conceptualised, developed and launched Rimba Collective with the corporate Founding Partners.
The Model
Currently, there are four companies within the Collective: consumer goods manufacturers Nestle, Unilever, PepsiCo and Proctor & Gamble. However, the Collective’s model can channel payments from companies across the entire supply chain, including plantation owners and palm oil traders.
Companies within the Collective enter long-term contracts of 30 years that commit them to annual payments, with their terms reviewed every five years. These contributions vary each year according to how much palm oil the company procures. All partners of the Rimba Collective report their palm oil usage on their website or in the RSPO annual report of progress (ACOP), as all partners are RSPO members. Companies can choose from which internal budget they make these payments from, for example their procurement or other sources such as internal funds. Contributions are not recorded as grants or donations but are rather found on a company’s balance sheet.
Michal Zrust comments on the importance of this payment feature: “If we really want to support long-term delivery of conservation and evolve from the traditional Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) approach, we need to integrate conservation financing into the cost-of-good and procurement payments as part of business as usual.”
A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) receives these contributions and distributes funds to a portfolio of projects in Southeast Asia, both within and outside companies’ direct supply chain footprint. Projects focus on both forest and peatland restoration and conservation. This portfolio is managed by Lestari Capital, which keeps track of the environmental and social outcomes (validated by external auditors such as Verra CCB and Plan Vivo that the projects deliver. Both the payments and the projects are aggregated on either side of the SPV. Lestari Capital is responsible for managing the SPV and overseas the portfolio of projects, due diligence and project onboarding.
Once projects are launched and begin to deliver their target outcomes, such as hectares of forests restored, companies are assigned the right to claim these quantified outcomes in their corporate reporting, proportionate to the amount they have paid to date. For example, a member could claim several hectares of forest restored that they then include in their Science Based Targets Initiative reporting. Claims can only be made once they are verified by a third party such as Verra. Upon outcomes being claimed, they are then ‘retired’ to prevent any double counting, much like carbon credits. However, unlike carbon credits, outcomes cannot be traded and can only be used by the companies.
Please see below the structure of the Rimba Collective:
*CPO = Crude Palm Oil *CGM = Consumer Good Manufacturers, Source: Lestari Capital
Portfolio of Projects
The Rimba Collective is supporting projects across Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia and soon in Malaysia and Papua New Guinea.
To be eligible for the Rimba Collective, projects must have a designated boundary to ensure that the outcomes can be measured and that the finance provided and its claims can be directly attributed to the area of intervention. Project operators must also have the necessary legal land rights in place. This helps to ensure that all interventions can be effectively delivered over the long term while simultaneously respecting the rights of local communities and indigenous people.
Once a project is onboarded, it receives up-front funding for the first year from the Collective, followed by yearly performance-based payments that are dependent on the project meeting its delivery plan.
While Lestari Capital is responsible for sourcing and managing the portfolio of projects, local project operators, mainly NGOs are responsible for the management of the projects themselves. The project operators, along with the local communities, determine the conservation activities based on their knowledge of the area’s specific needs, with Lestari team’s close support and advice. This helps to ensure that the project is fit for purpose.
Projects include both reforestation activities and protecting existing forest areas, as well as peatland restoration. Activities can include reducing threats to biodiversity and habitats, forest patrol and monitoring of village forests, development of multi-purpose tree species and tree planting. While the model supports a range of projects, the Collective aims to prioritize projects that have varied ecosystem service benefits, such as improving water quality, improving soil fertility and carbon sequestration.
In addition to environmental outcomes, each project is supporting and improving the livelihoods of local communities. The projects support local communities through business support, welfare support and indirect infrastructure development. This can include the development of non-timber forest products, agroforestry and eco-tourism. Activities to improve livelihoods are developed by the project operators with the local communities.
Demand drivers
The primary motivation for companies to engage with the Rimba Collective is to enhance business resilience and ensure supply chain stability. Commodity production—particularly of palm oil, rubber, and pulp—has historically contributed to deforestation, peatland degradation, and the loss of critical habitats, threatening biodiversity and ecosystem services. These environmental impacts, in turn, undermine the very landscapes that commodity supply chains rely on, increasing risks of land degradation, water scarcity, and socio-political instability. Companies increasingly recognize that the long-term growth of their business depends on secure and sustainable supply, and that thriving, biodiverse landscapes are integral to resilient sourcing regions.
For example, in the Merangin District of Jambi Province, the Rimba Collective supports community-based forestry projects managed by Perkumpulan Alam Hijau (AHI). These projects empower local communities to manage 12,300 hectares of land, 82% of which is intact forest, thereby preserving biodiversity and ensuring sustainable resource use.
Measurement and Verification
Project outcomes are measured in three key areas:
- Biodiversity benefits – related to the number of threatened and endangered species in the area being targeted for restoration or conservation.
- Social benefits – such as the number of households impacted, and children educated.
- Climate and area-based benefits – such as numbers of trees planted, hectares of natural forest, peat under restoration or conservation and carbon emissions reduced with restoration work.
As of May 2025, the Collective’s impacts include:
- 245,600 contracted hectares under conservation and restoration
- 98 endangered and vulnerable species’ habitats benefitting from conservation and restoration
- ~ 14,700 forest-dependent households benefitting from the projects’ activities that support their livelihoods.
Project operators submit reports on a quarterly basis, and monthly satellite surveys are conducted. Outcomes are verified using separate standards, such as the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standard, Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard, and the Plan Vivo Standard.
Outcomes must be verified before they can be claimed. To prevent overclaiming, the Collective has developed a grading system for environmental outcomes. Each outcome is assigned a grade from A to C, which helps distinguish between planned actions and verified outcomes. This measure ensures that double claiming can be avoided and that environmental outcomes can be tracked efficiently.
Challenges
Michal Zrust comments that it is a challenge to find enough conservation projects to channel finance at scale and supports the provision of project development finance from philanthropic donations or public grants. “The demand for projects is clearly there – we have up to 30 years of demand for example. The mechanism for linking demand and supply just needs to be well structured,” remarks Michal. The Lestari team is identifying donors for project development finance and is also seeking to build capacity internally and externally to help with the early stages of project development.
Another challenge Michal Zrust highlights is the development of the frameworks and processes that the Collective uses, which required consensus from the four companies. Differences in their legal, risk, procurement and ESG policies resulted in a resource-intensive design phase of matters like the Collective’s government engagement model and its standard contracts with projects.
Lessons Learned
Since 2022 when the mechanism came into operation, the Lestari Team have learned several lessons:
- Nature positive outcomes are contingent on collective action – it is difficult for one company to have the scale and impact across an entire landscape. By companies coming together to share responsibility they can have the desired environmental outcomes, while making a significant change in the industry.
- Unique payment feature that allows scaling – although the Collective is not a returns-seeking vehicle, it is also not a grant-giving organisation limited by CSR budgets. As the Rimba Collective proportionally links the purchase of agricultural commodities to environmental outcomes, it can achieve scale in line with the companies’ impacts.
- The aggregation of both payments and projects has multiple benefits – aggregating payments into a single fund allows Lestari Capital to build and de-risk a portfolio of projects that individually may not receive sufficient financing. It also enables companies to mitigate and share risk, in addition to giving companies a wider breath of outcomes, compared to individual project financing.
- Having a robust and credible measurement and verification framework in place is essential for companies to make claims that they see are reliable and trustworthy.
For companies reliant on nature to deliver products and returns, building supply-chain resilience is critical to success. The Rimba Collective directs capital into the very landscapes that underpin corporate sourcing, with tangible benefits for nature, biodiversity, climate and livelihoods.
Scaling and Replicating the Model
Demand from Rimba Collective partners has exceeded initial projections and the model has commitments to fully finance 550,000 hectares of projects, a target it was hoping to achieve by 2026.
While the model is fully subscribed, the team continues to identify opportunities for much larger impact through further project pipeline development with demand for robust and credible projects continuing to grow.
The Rimba Collective has been designed to be scalable and replicated to other areas in Asia, Latin America and Africa to target deforestation linked to coffee, cocoa, coconut, rubber and soy. The team is also exploring how the mechanism can be replicated for the fashion sector. While the mechanism can be easily scaled and replicated, finer details will need to be different based on the different commodity types and how their markets function.
In 2025, Rimba Collective is looking to expand its existing model for palm oil and aims to double its target to one million hectares by opening the model to new private sector partners.
Updated as of May 2025
Sources:
- ‘Forests in South-East Asia; Can they be saved?’, European Parliament Briefing, 2020
- Interview with Michal Zrust, Co-founder and Executive Director of Lestari Capital