NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF)

Review summary

NextEnergy Solar Fund (NESF) submitted its Approach to Nature report (2024), Sustainability and ESG report (2024), and Sustainability and ESG report 2025 to It’s Now for Nature and met all the review criteria to take part in the campaign.

NextEnergy Solar Fund’s (NESF) materiality assessment addresses the three core underlying activities of NESF: asset development, investment management and asset management. Local pressures, states of nature and upstream value chain impacts were assessed for each of those core activities.
Impacts: Climate change, land use change, water resources and soil pollutants.
Dependencies: Mass and slope stabilization, flood control, water availability and predictable atmospheric conditions.
Risks (non-exhaustive): Supply chain disruptions, water scarcity, loss of soil quality and long-term habitat degradation.
Opportunities: Transition to a low-carbon economy.

NESF has SMART targets across the following categories:
- Supply chain transparency;
- No conversion of natural ecosystems;
- Responsible land use and;
- 30×30 Ecosystem Restoration.
For Example:
- Avoiding the conversion of natural lands, including the remediation of any land converted from 31 December 2020 onwards.
- Implementing nature management plans for all assets located in sensitive areas, and ensuring 30% of land is managed under dual-use regimes.
- Restoring natural ecosystems in the ecoregions where NESF operates by up to 30% of NESF’s land-use footprint by 2030.
- Ensuring 100% of total annual sourcing by mass is traceable to origin, and that 90% of total annual sourcing by mass is from suppliers with commitments aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

To effectively implement targets, NESF is developing Nature Management Plans and has clear governance rules.
For example:
- NESF is remediating any conversion found to have taken place after 31 December 2020 across solar energy assets or in sourcing areas, proportionate to the area commensurate with sourcing volumes. NESF will embed the Investment Adviser’s screening, due diligence, and risk management systems in the Fund’s policies and procedures to ensure the No Conversion ambitions and targets are met.
- By 2028, NESF will draft and begin to implement Nature Management Plans for all assets located in areas of high ecosystem integrity or biodiversity intactness.

NESF’s Board of Directors oversees the Fund’s strategy, performance and management and is committed to including all nature-related risks.
In 2022, it established an ESG Committee to further drive the Fund’s sustainability and ESG agenda.