Following best practices in the forest sector goes beyond applying modern silviculture, and maximizing efficiency in harvesting and processing systems. Those who know the sector well, know that being cognoscente of Health and Safety issues is paramount.
In recent years, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors have gained significant importance in the world of investment. Investors are increasingly recognizing that financial returns alone are not enough to evaluate...
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is widely recognized for setting the bar on sustainable forest management with its voluntary certification standard. For forest investors, when an asset they invest into has FSC forest management certification, it gives great...
Biodiversity credits are making waves in the nature-based solutions space – albeit with few transactions. However, there have been several lessons learned from the voluntary carbon market that the biodiversity credit market wants to learn from and build on. In...
Last year, during a drought (I live in Northern Italy, where we weren’t making headlines for forest fires, but for the lakes being at an all-time low), we were having some earthworks on our property to channel ditched uphill farm runoff into a pipe. When they were...
BloombergNEF recently announced the publishing of The Biodiversity Finance Factbook. The publication provides finance, policy and sustainability professionals with important data to gauge current and required finance flows to biodiversity and further identifies where...
An Investor associate of mine said to me recently, “Our investees in [country], don’t even know what ESG is, let alone how to manage it.” I was shocked at first, but after giving it some more thought – it made sense. This investee my associate spoke of,...
Managing risks in a forest investment is a responsibility that sits with several people. Financial risks with the Financial Controller, operational risks with Forest Managers and Investment Managers and ESG risks with the Sustainability Manager and so on. However, the...
I’ve been contemplating over the past few weeks if I dare add to the opinion pieces circulating around the recent Guardian articles. In its January 2023 piece, the Guardian claimed that an analysis they conducted found that at least 90% of Verra’s rainforest carbon...
In this article, I explore the 6 traits of credible ESG in forestry. So, what is ESG? ESG – a light acronym with heavy interpretations. To some, ESG represents the collection of risks in the catch-all Environmental, Social and Governance aspects of investments. To...
