How Guaranteed Offtake Can Drive Sustainable Agriculture

Soy farm in Brazil
Marisa Repka
As food companies look to lower supply chain risk and reduce their ecological footprint, new strategies are emerging to increase adoption of sustainability practices among farmers. Several companies have begun using long-term contracts — purchase agreements guaranteeing offtake beyond an annual time horizon — to stabilize costs and allow both grower and buyer to plan further into the future.
Latest Articles
Wayne National Forest

Wayne National Forest in Ohio / Dan Keck

Pay-for-Success Financing

Shea Flanagan
Traditionally, conservation efforts raise funding for projects and actions in the hope that those activities will result in desired outcomes. This Toolkit explores Pay-for-success financing, an alternative approach. This model ties funding for conservation to project outcomes, incentivizing the achievement of objectives and shifting risk away from public agencies and conservation organizations that implement on-the-ground work.
Lettuce crops in California

Lettuce crops in California / Malcolm Carlaw / CC BY 2.0

New Collaborative Looks to Make Market-Rate Investments with Conservation Impact

Vincent Caruso
Impact Capital Managers (ICM), a network of impact-focused venture capital and private equity funds, is out to disprove the notion that investing for impact requires sacrificing financial return. On the contrary, ICM members aim to match or exceed the overall performance of the market, and they believe social and environmental objectives contribute to their success.
Oyster cage being lowered from boat

"Rappahannock River Oyster Company in Topping, VA" / Chesapeake Bay Program / CC BY-NC 2.0

Financing the Aquaculture Revolution

Kalyani Basu
The rise of aquaculture may hold promise to mitigate the environmental pressures of overfishing wild populations, and the food scarcity issues resulting from the rising global consumption of fish. However, to achieve these benefits, the aquaculture industry’s growth must be coupled with an increase in sustainable practices.
Cocoino National Forest in Colorado

New Impact Investing Partnership Fuels Ranch Conservation

Shea Flanagan
One would not typically think a timberland investment manager would partner with a land trust to conserve a ranch as an impact investing deal. However, this is exactly the case for the 25,000-acre BX Ranch in Pueblo County, Colorado. At the 2018 Land Trust Alliance Rally Conference, the “Impact Investing – The ‘Real’ Deal” workshop showed how the Palmer Land Trust developed an innovative impact investing framework with Lyme Timber Company and The Nature Conservancy to secure the funds necessary to protect the ranch.
Tools for Financing Conservation
USDA-funded water project in Oklahoma

Conservation Partnerships with Water Utilities

Eve Boyce
This article by Eve Boyce and Marcy Lyman is part of the Conservation Finance Network Toolkit, a resource designed for professionals who want to learn or communicate about the industry. In an increasing number of communities across the country, utilities are working with conservation groups to ensure the ecosystem services provided by healthy watersheds are protected and maintained. This strategy doesn’t simply provide cost savings to water companies. It can also create a new source of funding and constituencies for land conservation.
Larch trees in forest

Ballot Measures

Nathalie Woolworth
This article by Nathalie Woolworth and Hazel Wong is part of the Conservation Finance Network Toolkit, a resource designed for professionals who want to learn or communicate about the industry. Ballot measures, also known as initiatives or propositions, are instruments of direct democracy that allow voters to directly shape public policy in the voting booth.