Investment management firm Eurazeo announced today the launch of Eurazeo Planetary Boundaries Fund (EPBF), a new thematic impact buyout fund, aimed at investing in future leaders focused on reversing or adapting to overstepping of planetary boundaries.

Eurazeo said that the new fund has a target size of at least €750 million (USD$813 million), with a portion of carried interest tied to achieving impact key performance indicators.

The concept of planetary boundaries, delineating delineates the safe operating space for humanity within Earth’s ecological limits, was developed by the Stockholm Resilience Centre in 2009. The boundaries represent nine intertwined processes, including climate change, biodiversity integrity, land use change, and pollution, which guarantee the Earth system’s resilience and stability. According to the Stockholm Resilience Centre, six of the 9 boundaries have already been crossed.

Eurazeo Co-CEOs Christophe Bavière and William Kadouch-Chassaing said:

“The Eurazeo Planetary Boundaries Fund is an important strategic step for Eurazeo. The launch of this fund is fully in line with our strategic roadmap: strengthening our offering of positive impact, value-creating funds, for which there is a strong demand from both institutional and retail clients, and building on our rigorous ESG approach and on our previous successes with several asset classes.”

The new fund will focus on the themes of boosting a regenerative and circular economy, and championing solutions for transition and adaptation, and will invest in small to mid-market companies, primarily in Europe, to scale them up through buy and build strategies, across sectors such as agriculture and food, waste and packaging, water management, low-carbon energy, and transport services.

The fund will be managed by partners Erwann Le Ligné and Wilfried Piskula, with a team combining engineers with impact expertise, operating partners, and investment professionals, under the supervision of Eurazeo Executive Board member Sophie Flak.

Eurazeo also announced the formation of a special advisory board to help develop the new investment framework supporting the fund, with members including Hans Bruyninckx, former Head of the European Environment Agency, Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, Co-President of the Club of Rome, Laurent Gilbert, former Sustainable Innovation Director at L’Oréal, Pia Heidenmark Cook, former Head of Sustainability at IKEA/INGKA, and Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Flak said:

“Our EPBF approach allows us not only to tackle on a large-scale issues that reach beyond climate change, but by merging science and business it empowers our investors to address the most pressing challenges of the transition to a circular and regenerative economy.”