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Rio de Janeiro to have a R$2.3bn Mariott hotel complex

The project, however, still depends on environmental permits

01/17/2023

Maraey — a tourism-residential project run by foreign investors in Brazil — has reached an agreement with Marriott International to build three hotels on the property, located in Maricá, Rio de Janeiro state. In total, R$ 2.3 billion in investments are planned for the three structures. With the agreement, the U.S. hotel chain promises to launch the Ritz-Carlton Reserve luxury brand in South America.

Maraey is devised by IDB Brasil, a company that owns 840 hectares of land and will own the hotels. The company is formed by a group of Spanish, Brazilian, American, and Chinese businessmen, led by the Cetya and Abacus groups. Their activities are mainly in construction through the development of real estate and hotel projects. The company in charge of the construction is still to be defined.

The plan is ambitious, since the Brazilian hotel market has difficulty attracting large luxury brands due to issues such as exchange rates and unprofitable tariffs. In Rio, one of the main luxury brands today is Fasano, which is national.

It was only last year that Marriott brought the first JW Marriott unit to Brazil — opened in São Paulo, in the building formerly occupied by the Four Seasons. The company will also give its name to one of Maraey’s hotels. The Rio de Janeiro version of the JW Marriott will be one of the first of the hotel group to adopt the “all-inclusive” model (tourists pay a daily rate that includes all expenses inside the hotel).

A theme hotel called Rio Autograph Collection is also planned, the first with the Rock in Rio music festival brand.

The hotels will have more than 1,100 rooms altogether, all operated by the U.S. giant. Maraey’s final project foresees one more hotel, which is still under study.

“In association with the hotels, we foresee the offer of 244 exclusive branded residences (villas, duplexes, and apartments),” Emilio Izquierdo, Maraey CEO, told Valor. In total, 80 will use the Ritz-Carlton Reserve brand and the rest will be under the JW Marriott brand.

“We are creating a unique tourist destination in this strategic market for us, which is Brazil,” says Laurent De Kousemaeker, head of development for Marriott International. The forecast is to start construction in the second half of this year. The group is now seeking permits from the Environmental Institute of Rio de Janeiro and a construction permit from the city hall.

Mr. Izquierdo said that after the agreement with Marriott, the group will launch in the next months a hotel real estate fund focused on qualified investors to raise funds. The idea is to also seek international contributions. About 40% of the project should be raised through the fund, and the rest will come from debt. “We are studying the support of banks such as the development bank BNDES and IDB, and we also believe in the support of other financial institutions”, he said.

According to De Kousemaeker, the luxury lodging sector in Brazil is still evolving. “In markets where we do not observe an oversupply problem, we already see potential to induce new demand and some luxury hotels achieve high rates in local currency, when compared to other destinations in the region,” he said.

Despite its natural beauty and strong culture, Brazil has been unattractive to international tourism. According to data from the World Tourism Organization, Brazil ranked number 49 in 2018 in the number of international tourists, with 6.6 million. France, which leads the ranking, received 89 million that year.

The entire Maraey project encompasses 840 hectares, 6.6% of it with buildings. The total private investment will be around R$11 billion. The idea is that it will become a true luxury city, with more than 8,000 high-standard homes and services.

*By Cristian Favaro — São Paulo

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Project seeks to increase organic production

FGV study points ways to accelerate the transition of family farmers

10/10/2022

Organic production in Canindé, state of Sergipe — Foto: Emiliano Capozoli/Valor

Organic production in Canindé, state of Sergipe — Foto: Emiliano Capozoli/Valor

Marcelo Fukunaga’s life changed radically when his daughter was born. Besides experiencing the excitement of becoming a father, he also realized that, as a farmer, he did not have the courage to feed her with the products he grew on his property, because of the amount of pesticide he used. It was then that he took the courage and decided to migrate to organic production on his 10 hectares of land in Vale do Ribeira, in the south of São Paulo state.

But not all small producers have the motivation for such a change. And as much as some want to reduce their dependence on chemicals, they face a many challenges.

To unlock this market, the Center for Sustainability Studies of the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGVces) prepared a study with recommendations for the public and private sectors to encourage the transition of small producers. The initiative had the support of Carrefour Brazil and the Carrefour Foundation and the collaboration of 50 organizations and more than 70 people, including Mr. Fukunaga.

Those who believe that the difficulty for organics is low productivity are wrong, he says. “In the past, I was always in debt to the poison and fertilizer industries. Today, I produce without debt, and the revenue stays all with me,” says the producer. In 2010, when he changed his model, Mr. Fukunaga reduced his production area to four from ten hectares, and his net income doubled.

The organic produced this way can be as competitive as conventional food. The difference is in the costs after the gate, logistics and certification. “Organic food can be affordable if it is produced close to where it is consumed,” says Taís Brandão, researcher at FGVces and manager of the project.

According to FGVces, it is possible to untie the knot with a tripod formed by technical assistance and rural extension of organic practices, promotion of markets suitable for organic family agriculture, and dedicated public policies. The center defends that the guidelines should also target producers “in transition”, that is, who still don’t fit in fully organic.

There are already some initiatives, such as the São Paulo government’s, which approved in February the Agroecological Transition Protocol, aimed at a “gradual” transition. “There are those who don’t use pesticide, but being organic is not only that,” says Araci Kamiyama, leader of the organic group of the Sustainable Rural Development Coordination (Cati). According to her, the biggest challenge is in the technical support.

On the leg of market access, the study says that retailers need to establish contracts with those suppliers that foresee sharing of losses and of certification costs, purchase guarantee, reduced payment terms, non-consigned sales, and flexibility in supply that respects the season of each food.

Cooperatives can play a crucial role, says the study. This is what made a quick transition possible for Mr. Fukunaga, who participates in the cooperative Coopafasb. “Were it not for the cooperative, I would not have access to markets as I do today,” he says. Coopafasb organizes food baskets sold directly to consumers.

Another leg indicated by FGVces is that of government support. According to Mr. Brandão, besides the need for credit lines for systems in transition, it is necessary that bank employees have the orientation to offer them. “Sometimes the producer wants these lines, but the manager doesn’t know about them or has no incentive to offer them, and directs the farmer to a standard line, which foresees intensive use of external inputs”, says Ms. Brandão.

In São Paulo, a line of credit from Fundo de Expansão do Agronegócio Paulista (Feap) offers up to R$500,000 for each farmer that wants to migrate to organic systems, but the demand is small. “I don’t know why. Some producers are very small and or don’t have planning, but some have capacity,” says Ms. Kamiyama, with Cati. The study also advocates public procurement of organic food and systems in transition.

There is also the leg of science. “When you talk about an organic agroecological model, you don’t have enough inputs or research, and the genetic base comes from conventional agriculture,” Ms. Kamiyama recalls.

The producers who are now seeking a transition for their crops end up learning by doing, as it was for Mr. Fukunaka. “In the previous model, I didn’t have time for my family because I always needed to increase the scale. But there are several techniques that make you produce more food and in a more diverse way. Today I work more calmly and have been able to see my children grow up.”

*By Camila Souza Ramos — São Paulo

https://valorinternational.globo.com/
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Project aims to restore 1m hectares of forest

Ricardo Rodrigues, Bernardo Strassburg and Thiago Picolo — Foto: Leo Pinheiro/Valor
Ricardo Rodrigues, Bernardo Strassburg and Thiago Picolo — Foto: Leo Pinheiro/Valor

A group of major investors, renowned biodiversity researchers and economists has created a company to implement the largest project to restore degraded areas in the country: re.green is born with initial capital of R$389 million and the pioneering goal of restoring 1 million hectares of Atlantic Forest and Amazon rainforest.

The initiative to regenerate tropical forests on a large scale is unprecedented in Brazil and perhaps the world. One million hectares is almost half the area of the territory of the state of Sergipe and 250 times the size of Tijuca National Park, in Rio de Janeiro. It is equivalent to the area of Suzano’s native forest, one of the largest private protected areas in the country.

“re.green is born from science, contains science, and intends to do a lot of science,” says one of the founders and partners, economist Bernardo Strassburg, a reference in global studies on priority areas for ecosystem restoration. “It will be by far the largest experiment in tropical ecology on the planet,” he says.

To get an idea of how big the ambition is, in Brazil’s climate commitment launched in 2015, one of the strategies for the country to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 43% from 2005 levels was to restore and reforest 12 million hectares by 2030. This has not even begun.

re.green took one year and a half to mature and stimulated four heavyweight investors close to environmental agendas — BW (family office of the Moreira Salles family), the manager Lanx Capital and its private equity arm Principia, Gávea Investimentos and Dynamo.

The return on investment will come with the sale, in a few years, of premium carbon credits — because they will include, at the same time, benefits in climate, communities, and biodiversity — and timber and non-timber products from the regenerated forests. The plan is to capture 15 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

re.green’s board is chaired by Marcelo Medeiros (former partner at Banco Garantia and executive at Credit Suisse) and its members include João Moreira Salles, Fábio Barbosa (ex-Santander and Grupo Abril, and partner at Gávea), Arminio Fraga (Gávea), Marcelo Barbará (founding partner at Lanx and Cambuhy), and Ana Luiza Squadri (partner at Principia Capital Partners).

The intention of re.green’s founders and partners is to restore a large part of Brazil’s environmental liabilities by turning degraded and abandoned pastures, for example, into forests again. Or to establish partnerships to restore large areas on private and corporate properties. The third front is to restore areas in conservation units.

One of the strategies is to buy areas and form biodiversity corridors. “We will plan the space to expand the habitats of native species, preferably near conservation units,” says Ricardo Rodrigues, one of re.green’s partners.

He is a professor of Restoration Ecology at the University of São Paulo and a reference in the field of restoration in the Tropics, with more than 30,000 hectares of Atlantic forest restoration. He founded in Piracicaba (state of São Paulo) the Bioflora nursery, the most symbolic of native seedlings of the Atlantic forest, with almost 30 years.

In the case of partnerships, re.green provides the seedlings, the seeds, and the implementation of the forests, and keeps the carbon credits, explains economist Thiago Picolo, CEO of the new company. “The purchase of properties is a possibility, mainly because of the permanence of the projects and the carbon credits. It is essential that we can guarantee that the restoration will last forever,” explains Mr. Picolo, who was CEO of Hortifruti Natural da Terra, a food retail chain focused on fresh and organic products that was sold in 2021 to Americanas S.A.

The choice of priority areas to be regenerated is one of the distinguishing features of Mr. Strassburg’s new company and study area.

“We are using science to prioritize where we will regenerate forests. Where it will have the most impact for biodiversity, for carbon capture, and where it will be financially viable,” he says.

It is not a random choice, but areas that, if regenerated, can have ten times more impact on climate and biodiversity than others, explains Mr. Strassburg, a professor of sustainability science at the department of Geography and Environment at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ).

The first place of interest for re.green is in the South of the Bahia state, a region that is a biodiversity hotspot with great impact also for carbon sequestration. Another priority region is in the state of Pará. In the case of the purchase of areas, the promise is to return to society the land restored and as a conservation unit.

Mr. Rodrigues reminds that a current trend in restoration projects and carbon sales is concentrating on “easier situations”. These are areas with potential for natural regeneration. “If we only have this option we will leave a trail of degraded areas that no longer have the potential for natural regeneration because they have been so exhausted. re.green has not shied away from this. It’s a huge challenge,” he says.

In the case of carbon credit sales, re.green’s project is to qualify for the sale of carbon removal credits, which have, on average, a price five times higher than avoided deforestation credits. They are at a premium because they seek Verra CCB certification (which certifies projects with simultaneous climate, community, and biodiversity benefits).

“The restoration economy is a complex ‘business case’. It requires a lot of initial investment and returns over time. You have to wait for the forest to come back. It’s a patient capital,” says Mr. Strassburg.

The initial strategy is to divide the regeneration efforts equally between the two forest biomes. “The beauty of this project is also the fact that it generates an entire restoration chain, with social impact in the generation of jobs for seed collectors and in the seedling nurseries,” says Mr. Rodrigues.

Source: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com

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