Nuveen has raised $785 million in commitments for its third C-PACE Lending Fund, bringing total strategy AUM to over $6 billion.
The fund targets long-dated, investment-grade impact assets aligned with insurers’ demand for stable returns and ESG outcomes.
2024 C-PACE investments helped cut emissions equal to 407,000 acres of forest, saved 461 million gallons of water, and enabled over 2,100 housing units.
Nuveen, the global asset manager with $1.3 trillion in assets under management, has announced $785 million in new capital commitments for its Nuveen C-PACE Lending Fund III. The fund is managed by Nuveen Green Capital (NGC), a leading provider of sustainable commercial real estate financing, and is part of a broader C-PACE strategy that now exceeds $6 billion in assets under management since inception.
The fund aims to meet insurers’ growing appetite for scalable, long-duration, investment-grade fixed income with measurable environmental and social impact. C-PACE (Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy) financing is a public-private model offering long-term, low-cost capital to commercial building owners to fund sustainability upgrades that enhance energy efficiency, water conservation, and climate resilience.
“While sustainability and impact remain key considerations for insurers and their investments, we also continue to see life insurers prioritizing longer duration, investment grade asset backed securities with attractive risk-adjusted returns,” said Joseph Pursley, Nuveen Head of Insurance, Americas. “NGC’s C-PACE strategies meet both of these considerations, which provide a solution that drives greater climate resiliency while being capital efficient, meets risk requirements and offers scale that insurers are looking for in their investment portfolios.”
Alexandra Cooley, CIO and Co-founder of Nuveen Green Capital, emphasized the fund’s role in expanding NGC’s capabilities to deliver attractive financing solutions to commercial property owners: “NGC’s vertically integrated platform brings investors scaled and proprietary flow of C-PACE assets with established sponsors with both compelling economics and positive social impact.”
The C-PACE Lending Fund III strengthens Nuveen’s positioning among institutional investors focused on ESG objectives. A recent Nuveen survey showed that 93% of insurance clients consider or plan to consider environmental and social impact in their investment decisions. Currently, Nuveen manages $325 billion in assets for more than 125 global insurance clients.
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NGC continues to lead the market in origination and innovation within the C-PACE space. As of the end of 2024, the firm had issued more than $3 billion through securitizations and private funds and was the first to securitize commercial PACE assets and launch a private fund series.
According to Nuveen Green Capital’s 2024 impact report, its C-PACE financings delivered significant environmental and social benefits: reducing carbon emissions by an amount equivalent to the impact of over 407,000 acres of forest, saving more than 461 million gallons of water and 585 megawatt hours of energy, and supporting the creation of over 2,100 housing units.
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