Event Details
Cattle, soy, and palm oil are keystone commodities that underpin entire economies, support millions of rural livelihoods, and permeate global food systems. However, they also drive habitat and biodiversity loss. To meet rising demand sustainably, we need resilient business models that decouple production from deforestation and certain land use change that contributes to emissions and habitat loss. Financial institutions, as the providers of capital to commodity companies, have the power to change the trajectory of deforestation and conversion rates. These emerging models can drive a new wave of agricultural productivity, reducing emissions and resource use while enhancing resilience and lowering costs.
Join us on April 24-25, 2025, at the Royal Society in London for a day and a half of workshops to help you achieve deforestation and conversion-free finance. This event will provide essential training to help the financial sector understand commodity supply chains, manage risk, and achieve growth through empowered client-facing teams.
Objective:
To support the financial sector in allocating capital in a way that considers evolving risks, meets Net Zero goals, and achieves growth by financing resilient business models that decouple agricultural production from harmful land use change and deforestation.
Agenda Summary:
The full agenda will be released over the coming month.
Day 1 Theme: Understanding Commodity Supply Chains and Supporting Resilient Business Models
- Insights from leaders in financial policy, regulation, and government on the macro-economic outlook and the role of food systems in meeting global climate, nature, and social goals.
- Expert seminars providing a technical understanding of how beef, soy, and other supply chains operate.
- Learning opportunities on about transparency and traceability systems that portfolio holdings can use to meet their goals.
- Breakout workshops tailored by organization type, focusing on relationship management, risk management, due diligence, and engagement approaches
- Drinks and networking reception
Day 2 Theme: Challenges and Opportunities in Investing in the Agricultural Transition
- High-level guest speakers (TBA) discussing the opportunities for the financial sector in 2025 on the road to COP30 in Belém and beyond.
- Interactive breakout sessions where participants will apply the theory learned on Day 1 to real-life scenarios, explore innovative financial instruments and what is required to seize investable opportunities in the agricultural transition.
- Panel of industry leaders from food and agriculture corporations, commodity traders, and financial institutions, who will participate in an open Q&A session to discuss challenges and collaboration opportunities.
Participants will benefit most from attending the full 1.5-day sessions, but we understand schedules can be tight. Please let us know if you will be attending one or both days.
Who Should Attend:
This bespoke interactive session is designed for client facing, risk and responsible investment teams across banks and investors. It will provide decision-useful insights, examples from companies, and sector-specific practical knowledge to help financial professionals support their customers' transition while achieving their own Net Zero portfolio objectives.
It is the policy of this event to comply in all respects with anti-trust and competition laws. This event is intended to foster the exchange of information among organizations involved in climate change action. While engaging in these activities, discussion of any matters relating to competition among event attendees or relating to practices that may restrain trade with third parties is not permitted. These prohibited subjects included prices, allocating territories, boycott or any other statements that may be construed as anticompetitive. This event does not condone and disclaims any such topics. Any questions about the propriety of a discussion should be raised immediately.