January 23, 2026
By Published: January 2025
British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI) has been active in the natural capital space for two decades with an approach focused on long-term stewardship, cycle-aware deployment and respect for local realities
British Columbia Investment Management Corporation’s (BCI) large portfolio reflects two decades of investing in forestry and agriculture – asset classes that now form a key part of the Canadian institution’s infrastructure and renewable resources programme.
BCI says its involvement long predates the recent surge in interest. “We started investing in natural capital, specifically forestry, dating back to 2005, then agriculture in 2012. I got involved in 2008, but then became more active in the agriculture space in 2015,” says Sameer Jinnah, managing director of infrastructure and renewable resources.
Together, forestry and agriculture currently represent around 20% of BCI’s infrastructure and renewable resources portfolio, although natural capital is not treated as a standalone asset class.“Clients allocate their capital to infrastructure and renewable resources. We decide whether forestry and agriculture – the two natural capital sectors we invest in – fit the strategy. We don’t look at them as their own portfolios; we look at them as part of a broader infrastructure programme,” he says.
BCI pursues a buy-and-hold approach. Rather than building portfolios purely for exit, the focus is on timing, opportunity and structural value. “We invest in forestry and agriculture opportunistically. These investments are inherently cyclical, and there are times when it’s the right time to buy. We’re not natural sellers. For us, it’s about buying and building,” Jinnah notes.
“Historically, we’ve been able to help out in situations where there’s a capital-structure issue or where the company is at a point in the cycle where margins haven’t yet recovered. BCI’s flexibility has been and continues to be key,” he says.
Natural capital investments must meet or exceed the risk-return profile of infrastructure investments.“Forestry and agriculture are good diversifiers within our programme, but they still have to justify themselves on financial terms,” he emphasises. The long-term performance experience is a high single-digit return.
Agriculture follows what Jinnah calls “a barbell”. On the low-risk, lower-return side lies traditional farmland; on the higher-risk, higher-return end is integrated agriculture, covering production through marketing, distribution and delivery to the consumer. Agricultural logistics sits between these.
Forestry also spans a spectrum, with returns varying across regions, driven by cost structures and market access. “As we get into forestry regions in Latin America, for example, we’re looking for higher returns to match the higher risk,” Jinnah says.
Brazil forestry debut
BCI is in the process of closing its first Brazilian forestry transaction, attracted by competitive costs.“The assets we’re investing in are very much tied to global pulp markets. The US pulp industry is challenged right now; prices are low, costs are high. But if you go to a low-cost producing region like southern Brazil, the picture changes,” he explains.
Under the deal, BCI has acquired a significant minority equity stake in the Brazilian platform, equivalent to roughly 100,000 hectares of sustainably managed mature timberland. The transaction was structured in partnership with Klabin, a large Brazilian producer of paperboard packaging, and BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group. The total investment by all parties is US$700m (€597m).
A similar logic applies in Uruguay, where plywood production has drawn BCI. “Uruguay is the second-lowest-cost producer of plywood globally. That, combined with access to US, European and Mexican markets, makes the region attractive,” he says.
BCI’s natural-capital portfolio is global but not without boundaries. “We stick primarily to OECD countries,” Jinnah says.“In some cases, we’ll veer from that, but we need strong conviction to do so.”
Ecological and social outcomes
As natural capital increasingly intertwines with ecological and biodiversity objectives, assessment and integration become essential – but not uniform.
“Biodiversity, water use, local environmental pressures and community expectations vary widely across regions. It’s very specific to the assets and their situations. We manage to the environmental and community context of each of those regions,” Jinnah says.
“Indigenous relations are critical. It’s very different on the west coast of Canada, in Chile, or in Brazil. In Chile, for example, the interests of indigenous communities vary even between adjacent communities. If you get it wrong, your investment will not be successful,” he adds.
Hands-on team structures support this viewpoint. “We partner with teams on the ground who have long histories operating in these regions – not just operating the assets but working with the specific communities.”
While nature-based financial products such as green bonds and biodiversity credits have proliferated in recent years, BCI focuses on the underlying real assets rather than the instruments built around them.
“For our purposes, we are not investing in these products directly. We invest in the assets. If there are revenues generated from carbon sequestration or solar leases, that’s over and above. But the asset has to stand on its own merits,” Jinnah says.
Carbon may create upside, but it is not the central thesis. “Whether the price of carbon is going to rise is speculative. We don’t rely on it,” he explains.
Scaling challenges
Scaling natural capital can be challenging for structural reasons, and forestry illustrates this most clearly. “The easiest way to scale is to aggregate, buy adjacent assets and build a platform,” Jinnah says. BCI has platforms in East Texas, Chile, Uruguay and western Canada. But bolt-on opportunities are slow. “We may zero in on a region, and it could be five years before we find a reasonable bolt-on. Or it could be the very next year.”
For this reason, timing and governance are critical. “We want to invest when the risk-return makes sense for our clients and generates the same or stronger risk-return as we are seeing in infrastructure. That requires patience.”
Jinnah says BCI’s relative exposure to natural capital “is appropriate”, currently at about 2% of its €190bn in total assets. “These are illiquid private investments,” he says.
There are no long-term plans to materially increase this share but the larger programme continues to grow. “We don’t have a target beyond maintaining a portion of our infrastructure portfolio in forestry and agriculture over the long term,” he says.
Climate risk concerns
One of the most rapidly evolving considerations is climate risk. “The impacts of climate change across different regions vary substantially, and that’s going to continue to change over the next 10 to 20years. We’re constantly evolving that part of the practice,” he says. Policy environments, especially in non-OECD markets, are also dynamic and resource-intensive.
Republished with permission. Read the original article on IPE Real Assets.
