17 October 2023. By AgForce CEO Michael Guerin.
Sometimes in life, opportunities come from the most unexpected of places.
For example, has anyone heard of the ‘Taskforce for Nature Related Financial Disclosures’ or ‘TNFD’. It sits within the United Nations.
Now I know when many of us hear the word Taskforce, our eyes glaze over wondering where all those well-meaning discussions ultimately end up.
But TFND represents, in AgForce’s opinion, a once in a generation opportunity for landholders. Let me explain.
This Taskforce has developed an innovative set of disclosure recommendations for organisations trying to report and act on the ever-evolving dependencies of nature. They cut through the confusion by breaking down the full range of impacts, risks and opportunities.
The recommendations provide guidance and enable businesses and finance to integrate nature into decision making, and as the Taskforce states: ‘ultimately support a shift in global financial flows away from nature-negative outcomes and toward nature-positive outcomes.’
Some Australian banks are pushing the Australian Government to include these recommendations in its soon to be released ‘sustainable finance’ agenda.
This follows a new set of guidelines released at the UN Climate Week in New York recently, where banks made it clear they want full disclosure of impacts on the natural environment. Under the guidelines, financial institutions WILL assess biodiversity impacts and dependencies as part of their assessment of whether to lend you money as a landholder.
I don’t need to describe to anyone the threat this could pose – but in keeping with this theme - I want to change perspective, and hover on the inherent opportunity for a minute.
Let’s look at this from a broader perspective - what would happen if we sit on our hands and do nothing? That represents more of a threat to landholders.
Landholders have an asset under their stewardship that is gaining value daily – it’s called Natural Capital. Having a verifiable baseline of that Natural Capital resource provides a significant opportunity to appreciate and hold that value on property, to use and develop it as part of your business.
It also means these assets can be properly recognised by banks, by other service providers and by the broader community. What an opportunity if we lean into the conversation – which is what AgForce intends to do.
The risk of course is we sit by and watch others take the value and dictate the terms.
So let’s grab this opportunity.