Key Insights from Corporate Investments in Forestry and Biodiversity
Main takeaways from the CIFB Conference
Corporate Investments in Forestry and Biodiversity conference brought together a varied group of corporate representatives, investors, project developers, technology providers, NGOs and experts in forestry, agriculture, climate and biodiversity.
The two-day event was organised around panel discussions on exciting topics, ranging from forest carbon markets to investing in biodiversity and themes such as land restoration, as well as various technological solutions to help, for example, in monitoring and verifying the carbon or biodiversity targets.
AFRY participated in the event with a team of Jack Lonsdale, Sami Pastila and Guilherme Simon from the Management Consulting Division and Antti Mäkinen from AFRY X’s Smart Forestry team.
Key Insights:
Carbon markets growing
Voluntary forest carbon markets are growing steadily, although currently, the demand seems to surpass the supply. The quality of carbon projects and carbon credits was discussed widely, and there are initiatives to bring transparency into carbon trading. AFRY has been working extensively with this topic as a consultant and remote sensing technology provider.
Satellite image-based solutions and blockchain technologies
Satellite image-based solutions are widely used to decrease carbon monitoring costs, and many service providers were present at the event.
Using blockchain technologies increases transparency in the market. In many cases, these technologies play fundamental roles in carbon marketplaces that bring landowners providing carbon sequestration services and investors purchasing carbon credits together.
Nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions were broadly discussed at the event, in general. The NBSs can provide carbon sequestration services and many other positive impacts on biodiversity, soil health, groundwater and ecosystem resilience.
NBS projects often aim at restoring degraded lands and natural ecosystems, which means preferring native tree species over exotic ones in the context of forestry.
Investing in Biodiversity
Maybe the most prominent emerging topic was investing in biodiversity. Compared to trading carbon, which is relatively straightforward to quantify and monitor, biodiversity is inherently much more complicated.
Measuring biodiversity was discussed in multiple panel discussions by leading experts, including our own Dr Jack Lonsdale. Even though there is plenty to be done before biodiversity credits are traded in an established market, it is evident that there is a strong demand for investing in biodiversity.
Jack's panel discussion was fully recorded; please find the video below.
Panel discussion – Carbon and Biodiversity:
