It is particularly relevant for: 

1. Buyers purchasing natural resources and agricultural products, such as international commodity traders and manufacturers; 
2. Producers, intermediaries and service providers seeking to build and strengthen their sustainable business practices; 
3. Retailers who stock brands made from these traded products; 
4. Financiers and investors active or interested in conservation finance that target large-scale, long-term transformative change. 

As environmental pressures intensify, companies are facing looming threats regarding the reliability, quality and quantity of supply chain inputs. Forward-thinking companies have recognised that the environmental and social impact of their operations cannot be solved by site-based approaches alone. Site-level approaches isolate companies, reduce cost effectiveness and access to funding, risk “leakage” of impacts to other ecosystems and fail to address wider social and environmental issues, or to influence overall policies. 

Landscape approaches can address these important gaps in sustainability planning by taking a more holistic methodology. 

While committing to a landscape approach is a serious decision for any business, we believe there are sound arguments to support this concept. Failure to address challenges across the whole landscape could position companies at disadvantage. 

The benefits of action at landscape scale include:

• Engaging a wider set of stakeholders who can support successful businesses 
• Sharing and thereby reducing costs that would be higher if bourne independently 
• Reducing brand and reputational risk through addressing unsustainable practices 
• Jointly tackling ecosystem risks that can impact company assets and operations - such as water failure, floods, soil erosion or wildfire 
• Avoiding “leakage” of impacts from one site or ecosystem to another 
• Addressing issues which need combined action and cannot be solved at site-based level alone such as: legislative and regulatory needs; vulnerability from poorly planned or insufficient infrastructure; and ensuring shared services
• Increasing access to larger-scale public funding and private investment

Any one of these threaten brand reputation and security of supply and make it relevant to consider landscape approaches as a long-term solution in a corporate sustainability strategy. 

Evidence is provided where engaging with other stakeholders can reduce costs in the long run and give companies an advantage in fast-developing markets that still require additional infrastructure and financial investment support to reach their full potential. While the industry is still in its early days of establishing a standard set of services for landscape financing, an overview into the broad range of funding mechanisms to support landscape-scale approach such as financing instruments, grants, investment vehicles and support services is discussed, suggesting that the growing landscape finance ecosystem can one day become a sector of its own. 

The report authors hosted a full introduction and Q&A session on 22 October 2020

Co-authors Nigel Dudley and Marianne Smallwood shared a brief introduction on how adopting a landscape approach is an attractive entry point into the circular economy and can both help address environmental concerns while still maintaining company profitability.