Food & Agriculture

Our investment focus is the European Union's 2050 Green Deal. The Green Deal is a comprehensive and ambitious strategy aimed at achieving climate neutrality and environmental sustainability across the EU by the year 2050. This deal was introduced to address the pressing challenges of climate change, resource depletion, and environmental degradation. Key elements of the Green Deal include:

1. Climate Neutrality: The EU aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, meaning that the amount of greenhouse gases emitted should be balanced by the amount removed from the atmosphere. This involves significant reductions in carbon emissions from various sectors such as energy, transportation, and agriculture.

2. Renewable Energy: The Green Deal promotes the rapid transition to renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectric power. The plan includes increasing the share of renewable energy in the energy mix, investing in clean technologies, and improving energy efficiency.

3. Energy Efficiency: Improving energy efficiency across industries, buildings, and transportation is a major focus. The goal is to reduce energy consumption while maintaining or increasing output, thereby reducing the environmental impact of energy use.

4. Circular Economy: The EU aims to promote a circular economy where resources are used efficiently, products are designed for durability and recyclability, and waste generation is minimized. This involves measures such as reducing single-use plastics and promoting recycling.

5. Biodiversity and Agriculture: The Green Deal includes strategies to protect and restore biodiversity, enhance sustainable farming practices, and reduce the use of harmful pesticides and chemicals in agriculture.

6. Sustainable Mobility: The plan seeks to promote cleaner and more sustainable transportation options, such as electric vehicles and improved public transportation systems, while reducing emissions from the transportation sector.

7. Carbon Pricing: The EU intends to strengthen carbon pricing mechanisms to incentivize companies to reduce their carbon emissions. This can involve mechanisms like carbon trading and taxes on carbon-intensive activities.

8. Research and Innovation: The Green Deal emphasizes the importance of research and innovation to develop new technologies and solutions for tackling environmental challenges. Funding and support for green technologies are part of this effort.

9. Social Inclusion: The plan also considers the social dimension, aiming to ensure that the transition to a greener economy is fair and inclusive, creating new job opportunities and addressing potential negative impacts on vulnerable communities.

10. Global Leadership: The EU aims to lead globally in addressing climate change and promoting sustainability. This includes collaborating with international partners, advocating for stronger climate policies, and supporting developing countries in their own sustainability efforts.

The European Union's 2050 Green Deal represents a comprehensive and integrated approach to tackling climate change and building a more sustainable future for Europe. It involves transforming various sectors of the economy and society to align with environmental goals, while also considering economic and social implications.

We believe that the food processing should be performed when raw materials are produced and that  Central & Eastern Europe's food processing capacity will expand substantially in the coming years and ultimately exceed the food processing capacity of Western European EU member states.  

Central & Eastern Europe is one of the largest exporters of agricultural commodities in the world, providing 25% of global wheat exports.  Due to underinvestment in trans-shipment infrastructure and legacy  rolling stock, transport and logistics bottlenecks cost the region's farmers up to 40% of a commodity's market price.  

Historically, Central & Eastern Europe has been a low-margin, high-volume commodity supplier, while the value-added from processing cereals, vegetable oils and animal feed was captured by Western European food companies.  Due to energy, logistics and labor costs, Western European food processing is less attractive from a cost perspective and less sustainable from an environmental perspective. 

Processing food in proximity to where it’s produced is the most desirable solution, and a global macro-trend.  Building on the massive progress in raw material output productivity by new EU member states over the past 20 years, much of Central & Eastern Europe's untapped sustainable agricultural potential will be realized in the coming years. 

Due to the poor state of local infrastructure, the region's  infrastructure investment potential is comparatively large and the social, environmental and economic returns compare very favorable to infrastructure investment in more developed regions of the European Union.  

Particular areas of interest for Helianthus include rail trans-shipment, port infrastructure and energy security.  Rail is a key catalyst for Europe's decarbonization ambitions, and private capital will be instrumental in supporting fleets that are 40 - 60 years old.  The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given a transformational impetus for national governments to accelerate transport infrastructure in the region.  Projects which have been stalled for decades due to red tape are finally being fast-tracked by regional governments while the European Union and IFI's  are accelerating the roll-out of approval of funding for regional infrastructure projects.   

With industry and manufacturing increasing moving from Western Europe to low-cost Central & Eastern European countries, energy, rail and road infrastructure are the leading priorities, and offer attractive opportunities in the context of the European 'Green Deal' and 2050 decarbonization goals.  

The European Union's Green Deal envisions a net zero emissions Europe by 2050 which will involve the widespread implementation of climate-resilient technologies to decarbonize transportation, industry and agriculture  

With Central Europe and Ukraine heavily dependent economically on industry, mining and agriculture, the region will disproportionately experience the deployment of new energy solutions - especially hydrogen and renewable fuels - for transport and industry, and new solutions for waste management, re-irrigation of primary agriculture production and improved management of materials and water resource management in order to mitigate climate risks and offset increasing extreme weather events.   

Climate governance is part of our due diligence process, and all investments are considered in the context of compliance with the EU's Paris Agreement to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C .  Our focus areas include Transportation, Energy & Industrial Decarbonization, Environmental infrastructure/Waste Management, Refabrication/Recycling, Grid/Energy Systems Integration and Sustainable and stress-resilient agriculture,