Net Zero & Nature Positive Finance: Accelerating Sustainable Land-Use Investments for People and Planet
‘Business-as-usual’ land use for the big four drivers of deforestation - beef, soy, wood and palm oil and other commodities in which too much water is extracted for commodity production, forest are lost and species eradicated – is leading us on a path towards climate disaster and ultimately huge economic and financial costs for society.
A systemic transformation towards sustainable land use whereby agricultural commodity production is decoupled from deforestation, and whereby investments in forestry and agriculture lead to landscape restoration, climate mitigation, adaptation and biodiversity protection is possible. It requires fundamental shifts in the incentives provided by governments, such as through fiscal policies and trade agreements, as well as the will to act by agribusinesses, traders and financiers towards nature- and climate- positive land use.
UNEP’s Climate Finance Unit contributes to the needed shift for sustainable land use to become the norm rather than the exception in the following ways:
- Helping to create ‘proof-of-concept’ sustainable land use transactions,
- Scaling and standardizing, and
- Supporting the application of both a standard and disclosure framework – and other relevant efforts to be applied by countries to advance mainstreaming of sustainable land use across the world.
