There is tremendous value to be realized from the adoption of regenerative and forest positive agriculture that are resilient to the impact of climate change whilst simultaneously offering opportunities to sequester carbon in soils and biomass, produce co-products and services and improve the long-term productivity of forests and fields. As policy-makers around the World increasingly recognize hidden benefits and costs of business activities, they are enacting policy to price these in through mechanisms such as regulation, carbon taxes, trading.

FAO’s recent analysis suggests the ‘true cost of food’ and estimates the quantified hidden costs of agrifood systems to amount to 10 trillion dollars or more.5 The EU anti-deforestation regulation threatens fines of up to 4% of a company’s EU turnover from 30 December 2024 for companies not complying, whilst at the same time governments around the World are committed to progressively phase out or reform by 2030 subsidies that harm biodiversity by at least $500 billion per year.

Proactive business action to protect value creation under new physical and policy conditions will be paramount. We encourage collaborative dialogue between civil society, corporates, investors and the policy community in order to maximize the adoption of measures to ensure future-proof forest and agricultural value chains that continue to provide benefits to local communities and ecologies, to the global climate, business, consumers and investors alike.