When energy executives talk about green hydrogen in Brazil, the conversation almost always revolves around favorable winds in the Northeast, the costs of electrolyzers, and export opportunities. What rarely gets discussed with the same depth is the question that, in practice, decides whether a project gets off the PowerPoint stage or not: who finances the infrastructure that comes before?
This is where BNDES plays a role that goes beyond that of a conventional development bank.
From financier to market architect
The traditional credit logic does not work for capital-intensive assets with high regulatory risk and demand still in formation, as is the case with low-emission hydrogen. What BNDES has begun to do, in a more structured way in recent years, is different: to enter as an anchor investor through BNDESPar in private funds, reducing perceived risk and unlocking capital from other investors.
In practice, this means the bank does not need to finance each project directly. It finances the ecosystem.
The Climate Call, launched in September 2025 with results announced in January 2026, is the most recent and concrete example of this model. BNDES selected seven investment funds that will receive investments of up to R$ 4.3 billion from BNDESPar, with the expectation of leveraging approximately R$ 16.2 billion in additional capital from the private sector.
To put it into perspective: the bank is not merely lending. It is purchasing leverage.
How is money structured?
The seven selected funds are divided into two main streams:
- Ecological Transformation (ET): focused on low-carbon industry, energy, critical minerals, electrification, storage and, explicitly, hydrogen, with up to R$ 4 billion allocated across up to five equity and credit funds.
- Nature-Based Solutions (NBS): focused on reforestation, restoration and regenerative value chains, with up to R$ 1 billion allocated across two additional funds.
Within the ET vertical, three equity funds stand out due to their relevance to the green hydrogen value chain:
- Catalytic Transition Fund Brazil (Brookfield) — with a potential investment of up to R$ 1 billion, the largest among the selected funds, focused on energy transition assets and platforms.
- EB Clima II (eB Capital / Flying Rivers) — with a stated thesis on industrial decarbonization and energy transition, including abatement routes via H2V.
- Generation Just Climate Brazil (Just Climate) — a global strategy focused on sectors that are difficult to decarbonize, with Brazil and India as priority allocation hubs.
Two credit funds complete the architecture: the Vinci Climate Solutions Credit and the Riza Fama Climate FIDC, with target assets of R$ 1 billion each, structured to finance the "factory floor" of the transition, including industrial retrofitting, electrical integration, contracts, and logistics.
The part nobody mentions: warranties.
There is a systematically underestimated element in discussions about climate finance: the guarantee.
The Mombak case is illustrative. BNDES approved R$ 100 million for forest restoration through the Climate Fund and BNDES Finem, but the operation only became viable after Santander granted a bank guarantee. Without this guarantee, the disbursement would not have happened.
For green hydrogen projects, the rationale applies directly. Electrolyzers, compression systems, export infrastructure, and offtake agreements create a chain of risks that is rarely absorbed by a single instrument. Bank, performance, or structural guarantees — such as BNDESPar’s senior position in credit funds — are often what separates the announcement from actual disbursement.
Pecém as a testing ground
The Pecém Complex, in the state of Ceará, currently concentrates the most advanced green hydrogen projects in Brazil. Not by coincidence: the hub brings together port infrastructure, availability of renewable energy, and proximity to export routes to Europe.
However, a port hub requires significant groundwork long before the first kilogram of H₂ is exported: transmission lines, water availability, logistics integration, long-term contracts, and the ability to refinance throughout the assets’ life cycle. All of this is, fundamentally, financeable infrastructure.
It is precisely at this point that the Climate Call gains strategic relevance for Pecém and for any industrial hub betting on hydrogen. The ET funds selected by BNDES were designed to finance exactly this layer: not the product’s hype, but the structure that makes it viable.
What does this mean for CFOs and project managers?
For executives assessing how to access this financing ecosystem, several practical guidelines emerge from the design of the Climate Call:
- Stage of development: ET equity funds (Brookfield, eB Capital, Just Climate) are the natural route for projects in the structuring phase, platform expansion, or SPV formation.
- CAPEX with a defined timeline: credit funds (Vinci, Riza Fama) are better suited for projects with advanced engineering, contracted suppliers, and revenue agreements under negotiation.
- Minimum documentation: any approach to these vehicles requires, at a minimum, a robust economic case (CAPEX, OPEX, sensitivities), a technical case with risk management, commercial anchoring (even if based on pre-contracts), and alignment with the BNDES Sustainability Taxonomy, a formal criterion weighted at 20% in the fund selection process.
The underlying thesis: infrastructure, not hype.
The BNDES's move with the Climate Call signals something broader than a financing program. It signals an institutional commitment to the industrialization of the energy transition, treating hydrogen, industrial decarbonization, and nature-based solutions as infrastructure, with the same governance, risk, and return criteria that apply to highways or power plants.
For Brazil, this is relevant for an objective reason: the country has the natural resources to lead the production of green hydrogen on a global scale. What was lacking was the financial architecture to transform this potential into cash flow. BNDES is building this architecture, one anchor fund at a time.
The question now is which projects will be ready to walk through that door when it opens.
