Ambienta, the European sustainability focused asset manager, has acquired a majority stake in Energreen through its Ambienta IV fund, the firm announced on October 15. Sellers 21 Invest and founder Daniele Fraron will both reinvest alongside Ambienta. The price was not disclosed.
Energreen makes purpose built machines for vegetation management along roads, railways and other infrastructure corridors, work still mostly done with tractor and boom mower combinations. The company says its machines are about 40 percent more productive and 6 percent more fuel efficient than tractor based alternatives, company figures that Ambienta classifies as a resource efficiency and pollution control investment under its own impact framework.
About 75 percent of Energreen’s revenues are generated outside Italy, across Europe and the United States. The investment case Ambienta sets out is climate adaptation as much as emissions: unmanaged vegetation raises flood and wildfire risk and causes road and rail accidents, risks the firm says could expose up to half of European land to annual fire danger by 2050.
No valuation, revenue or earnings figures were disclosed, so the deal’s significance is directional: sustainability funds are moving from energy assets into the equipment suppliers that maintain physical infrastructure under climate stress.