This post was originally published on WBCSD
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 5: In December 2023, in Dubai, the agrifood sector was globally recognized for its role in tackling climate change and building resilience. The Emirati Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action was announced at COP28 setting a transformative agenda to ensure global food security while combating climate change. This ambitious declaration, endorsed by over 130 world leaders, called for urgent and collaborative action to integrate food systems into climate plans.
At the nexus of the agrifood and climate agenda set by the COP28 Presidency, December 2023 also saw the launch of the COP28 Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes, a groundbreaking model of multi-stakeholder action on regenerative agriculture at landscape level. This flagship initiative, launched by the COP28 Presidency, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), with support from the UN Climate Change High Level Champions, brings together farmers, agribusinesses, financiers, and leading non-state actors to aggregate, accelerate, and amplify existing efforts and new commitments to transition large agricultural landscapes to regenerative practices by 2030.
Shalini Unnikrishnan, Managing Director and Senior Partner, BCG and Co-Chair of the COP28 Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes “The intention and power of this Action Agenda lies in its cross-value chain approach – and that is what we heard lots of interest in during our COP29 engagements. Policymakers, businesses, finance and insurance sectors are all interested in joining forces to drive the collaboration that is needed to achieve our collective goals”
Today, we celebrate the advancements achieved by this private sector-led Action Agenda, which reports on progress a year since its inception and launches the Landscape Accelerator – Brazil (LAB), a landmark regional initiative to drive at-scale systemic change, starting in a critical biome in Brazil, the Cerrado.
In the past year, this Action Agenda has worked to unlock the transition to regenerative landscapes at scale by ensuring transparency on existing efforts on regenerative agriculture worldwide, connecting key players and helping catalyse investments in agricultural landscapes. To achieve these goals, the Action Agenda works through four elements:
- Stakeholder collaboration: The Action Agenda brings together an ambitious and curated group of participants from across the food & agriculture value chain and beyond, who have committed to investing in regenerative landscapes and measuring impact across five dimensions: carbon, soil health, biodiversity, water, and farmer livelihoods
- Data: Participants contribute to a unique global data platform of landscape efforts to facilitate the partnerships needed to reach scale, encompassing 300+ landscape projects across 280m+ hectares and 110 countries
- Insights: We have developed a repository of knowledge and experience for tackling roadblocks to systems change in each landscape, including a detailed understanding of farmer economics and needs to help put producers at the center of the agricultural transition. Additionally, we aim to develop a global playbook of replicable and scalable solutions.
- Action: We have begun to facilitate place-based programs to accelerate the speed and scale of the transition of large agricultural landscapes and provide a blueprint for global scale-up. The ambition of these Landscape Accelerators is to address the barriers for scale and unlock investments in key high-impact landscapes, by bringing together financial institutions, input providers, consumer-facing companies, agri-traders, producers, and civil society organizations and governments.
Through the Global Data Platform, in 2024 collective investments in regenerative landscapes were gathered amounting to over 6 billion USD (a threefold increase since last year) and covering 300+ projects and over 280M hectares, a 75% increase compared to 2023. The Action Agenda, which includes over 35 participants, has a diversified global footprint. The 2024 action package demonstrates this, with projects in over 110 countries and covering over 80 crops (a 60% increase since the previous reporting phase), with significant concentrations in top commodities and countries where environmental degradation is felt most strongly, and regenerative programs present greatest potential.
Through this initiative, participants track and report about progress over five key impact areas: carbon, soil health, biodiversity, water, and farmer livelihoods. So far, impacts on carbon have been most widely quantified (60% of respondents), whilst quantitative measurement of soil health, biodiversity and farmer livelihoods impacts lags behind (27% of participants). Progress on measurement will require standardizing methods for monitoring and reporting, reducing costs associated with data collection at scale and linking this data to benefits for farmers and the wider value chain players. Building on these foundational needs, the LAB aims to pave the way for further landscape collaboration by demonstrating an effective model to build much-needed resilience in agri-food systems.
Diane Holdorf, Executive Vice President, WBCSD and Co-Chair of the COP28 Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes “The Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes Initiative achieved notable progress this year, tripling investments in regenerative landscapes and launching a Landscape Accelerator in Brazil which coordinates previously unconnected projects to accelerate investments and outcomes on the ground. Efforts now focus on advancing measurement and reporting across key impact areas. While financing gaps remain, these steps underscore the business sector’s critical role in delivering meaningful outcomes for climate, nature, and people. WBCSD is committed to supporting Members and driving action ahead of COP30”
Amongst the 110 countries in the 2024 global mapping, Brazil stands out. Accounting for the largest share (32%) of aggregated efforts by land size, the host of COP30 is a high priority for leading agri-food players. Building on existing efforts including the Soft Commodities Forum, The Sustainable Landscapes Partnership, the Forest Investor Club (FIC), and the CGF’s Forest Positive Coalition, along with TNC’s longstanding work in Brazil, Action Agenda partners are joining forces through the LAB in order to transition the Brazilian Cerrado into the world’s first regenerative biome.
The LAB program brings together financial institutions, input providers, consumer-facing companies, agri-traders, producers, and civil society organizations to accelerate participants’ activities and investments in the Cerrado. By working with local partners, the LAB aims to aggregate and enhance ongoing efforts by identifying common breakpoints and constraints. This initiative will address barriers to scale through three key components:
- Regenerative Transition Plan: Developing collective action plan, supported by the government and COP30, to scale regenerative agriculture in the Cerrado:
- Conducting systems-based diagnostic of barriers to scale in the Cerrado
- Creating a model for collective action to transition to scale regenerative agriculture.
- Harmonized metrics: Adapting global, decision-useful metrics to the Brazilian context:
- Establishing an aligned set of nature-positive metrics to supporting scale up.
- Providing reporting guidance and case studies specific to the Cerrado.
- Public-Private activation: Building transition finance and policy support to activate the transition plans:
- Developing public-private financing stack and roadmap for scaling up investments
- Creating national and global advocacy plans to shape policy dialogues.
We are committed to advancing the agri-food systems transformation agenda and invite organizations to join our efforts. To this day, the Action Agenda continues to grow, creating transparency and accelerating action in targeted landscapes, unlocking value chain collaboration, synthesizing knowledge and best practices, and amplifying participants’ efforts on the global stage.
For more information about this initiative, please reach out to Martina Asquini.
Examples of results:
Global Agribusiness ADM partners directly with producers across its operating regions to encourage the adoption of regenerative practices by providing technical assistance and creating connections between farmers and downstream companies with shared sustainability goals. An example of successful action, its Regenerative Agriculture Program – available for farmers planting cover crops, reducing soil tillage, and/or improving nitrogen use efficiency – enabled ADM to sequester 263,700 MT of CO2 in 2024 – calculated using USDA’s COMET Planner model – and to reduce its Scope 3 emissions by an additional 310,000 MT of CO2.
TNC is supporting the State of Para in Brazil on its comprehensive approach to reduce deforestation attributed to cattle ranching, including Brazil’s first mandatory individual traceability policy with environmental requirements for cattle in the country. With cattle ranching in Brazil historically accountable for 24% of global tropical deforestation and 26 million cows in Pará, this program aims to reduce deforestation at its root, and encourage other states to follow. TNC is a key partner in this program’s implementation, focusing on accelerating aligned roll-out, incentivizing early uptake, and delivering partnerships that fulfill the state’s commitment to increase market access for smallholder farmers.
Launched in 2024, Heineken’s TRANSITIONS program is a value-chain cooperation model, the result of a partnership between Heineken and Malteurop / Vivescia – a French maltster and cooperative, along with other value chain partners who source raw materials from the same group of farmers. The program began with 200 farmers managing 25,000 ha of land, and aims to engage over 1,000 French grain farmers in adopting regenerative agriculture practices, such as cover cropping and low tillage, to manage 100,000 hectares of land by the end of 2026. The project focuses on an outcome-based farming approach that aims to protect and improve soil health, biodiversity, climate, and water resources while supporting farming business development in alignment with the SAI regenerative agriculture framework (Regenerating Together Programme). The program supports Heineken’s ambition to reduce its scope 3 FLAG (Forest, Land and Agriculture) emissions by 30% by 2030.
The post From Dubai to Riyadh: the COP28 Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes reports on progress and launches first Landscape Accelerator in Brazil first appeared on WBCSD.
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