Soil

A new research project in Australia aims to quantify the benefits of investing in natural capital, with hopes that it can shape farming practices for generations to come.

The Sydney-headquartered fund manager has secured commitments from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the SDG Kempen Farmland Fund for its Transforming Farming Platform.

Hurdles remain, but opportunities in ESG investment, private credit and from foreign investors point to enormous potential in Australian agriculture.

In a ‘pioneering first’, Impact Ag Partners this month sold A$500,000 of carbon credits to Microsoft through a voluntary market established by Regen Network.

Senior market development manager Nick Reinke says the negotiated sale is “related to, but independent from” a broader relationship with the software provider established after a competitive process last year.

The year ahead will see strengthening focus on reducing emissions across the economy continue to feed LP interest in agriculture.

Universally recognized authenticity checks, price points created by non-arbitrary forces and a way to reward those already farming sustainably are needed – this is a market with a lot left to prove.

JPMorgan, IBM and Barclays are among the first companies to agree to a carbon credit purchase price with Indigo as global corporate sustainability targets threaten to outstrip supply.

The investment is Tenacious’s first outside Australia and the second overall from its inaugural fund, which closed in Q1 2020.

The Australian government wants to hit a 90% reduction in the costs of measuring soil carbon to ‘transform the economics’ of soil carbon projects for farmers.