There is increasing interest in developing and supporting sustainable landscapes or jurisdictions that meet local goals for sustainable development and green growth while also providing opportunities for sustainable and responsible investment and commodity sourcing.
To raise awareness and advance action on this topic, the Climate Community & Biodiversity Alliance, Conservation International, the Global Canopy Programme and Earth Innovation Institute organized a workshop in Brussels, Belgium, 6, 7, 8 March for exchange between landscape and investment actors to help understand, from both local and international perspectives:
• what is meant by sustainable landscapes/jurisdictions?
• what investment/sourcing opportunities can be found in sustainable landscapes/jurisdictions?
• what information, tools, platforms and standards can help to scale up these investments and partnerships?
The workshop brought together 56 people to discuss scaling up investment in sustainable landscapes from national/sub-national governments and their partners working on sustainable landscapes initiatives, funds/companies seeking to invest in sustainable land use activities in developing countries, commodity sourcing companies seeking to meet deforestation-free sustainability targets, governments and international development institutions seeking to support developing countries with transition to green growth through sustainable landscapes, NGOs providing tools, data platforms and other initiatives that support sustainable landscapes and other NGOs and consultants supporting sustainable landscapes.
The workshop aimed:
● To enable exchange between landscape and investment/sourcing actors to help understand different interests and constraints as a basis for effective partnerships
● To clarify what is what is meant by sustainable landscapes/jurisdictions in the context of landscape initiatives at the workshop
● To identify the types of investment/sourcing opportunities that are facilitated by and that support sustainable landscapes/jurisdictions
● To understand the range of information tools, platforms and standards under development that aim to support sustainable landscape investments and partnerships, and provide feedback to help them respond to users’ needs
These objectives were considered by exploring case studies from jurisdictions that are making progress towards sustainable landscapes and where there are compelling opportunities for investment and/or commodity sourcing partnerships including San Martin – Peru, Mato Grosso – Brazil, North Sumatra – Indonesia, Central Kalimantan – Indonesia, North-western Liberia, Gola Forest – Sierra Leone and Liberia and Cocoa Forests Zone – Ghana.
New tools, platforms and standards that are emerging to support such partnerships were discussed using practical examples from the landscapes, including the Sustainable Landscapes Rating Tool, the Landscape Accounting Framework, the Forest Landscape Investability Index, Trase, Forest 500, Produce-Protect Platform, Governors’ Climate and Forests Performance System , The Landscape Standard, Commodities-Jurisdictions approach and database, Jurisdictional Risk Assessment and SIPKEBUN – Information and Performance Monitoring System for Sustainable Plantations.
A report provides a synthesis of findings from the workshop. Download the workshop synthesis report here
A separate report provides links to presentations made at the workshop and a record to outputs from group work and discussions. Download the detailed workshop report here