Identifying the most effective financial mechanisms to motivate landholders, including vineyard owners, in the Murray Darling Basin to adopt climate-resilient and sustainable practices is the aim of a project being co-funded by Wine Australia and coordinated by the OneBasin Cooperative Research Centre (CRC).
The project is exploring the potential of ‘green finance’ instruments to support sustainable practices, such as biodiversity and carbon credits, green leasing and sustainability related loans and bonds. There is increasing evidence that financial market participants and others are increasingly willing to consider investment opportunities that support land management activities with tangible environmental and social outcomes.
A key expected outcome of the project is the promotion of new investment and incentive instruments and associated guidance to support landholders in accessing them. In the coming months, landholders and financial market participants will be interviewed to evaluate the opportunity for green finance instruments and incentives.
Dr Nick Pawsey, from the School of Business at Charles Sturt University, and Alex Sas, Senior Research & Innovation Program Manager at Wine Australia, are leading the project team.