The California Fisheries Fund, a project of Environmental Defense Fund, kicked off 2011 by issuing its sixth and largest loan since the revolving loan fund was launched in 2008 to invest in sustainable fishing businesses on the West Coast.
The loan was made possible by a unique business partnership with San Francisco-based New Resource Bank. CFF and New Resource Bank partnered to extend a $3 million loan to Wild Planet Foods, a sustainable seafood company in McKinleyville, California. Read what the San Francisco Business Times had to say about the California Fisheries Fund:
“The loans can be used to finance all kinds of improvements that foster sustainability. Some of those include upgrades in fishing gear that let fishermen catch more of the fish they’re targeting and less of the fish they’re not, and dockside infrastructure like chillers that would allow fishermen to keep and sell products locally as opposed to trucking it to other markets.”
The partnership between the California Fisheries Fund, New Resource Bank and Wild Planet represents a growing trend where for-profits and non-profits share many of the same values and an interest in mission-driven outcomes. In this case, all three organizations are driven by a mission of promoting and supporting environmental sustainability, with two of them—CFF and Wild Planet—specifically focused on sustainable fisheries.
Now the CFF is expanding its loan program outside of California to the entire West Coast. Just this week, the California Fisheries Fund closed its first loan in Washington state. To learn more about the California Fisheries Fund, please visit: http://www.californiafisheriesfund.org/index.html
Press release: http://www.californiafisheriesfund.org/press_rel_012111.html