Soil Investment Hub

Anna Aspenson, Christi Electris, David LeZaks, Jaime Silverstein

Contributors:
Tony Siantonas, Tom Williams, Robert Barbe, Daniela Solis 

December 2021

Soil health has emerged as a key solution area in the context of our food system, climate emergency and nature recovery. It can benefit climate change mitigation, soil productivity, producer resilience and biodiversity. Companies all along the value chain depend on the ecosystem services of healthy soils to succeed.

The “Soil Investment Guidance Report” aims to support food and agriculture companies to invest in impactful, high-value, and long-term solutions for healthy soils along their supply chains and beyond. It identifies 13 investment mechanisms that have distinct connection to material impacts and types of financial, environmental, and social returns.  

The intention of this work is to:

1. Standardize the classifications of soil as a value-chain asset.  
2. Qualify, quantify and demonstrate the private and public benefits of investing into soil health practices fully accounting for the value – including environmental, social and economic – being produced across agriculture sub-sector-, region- and stakeholder specific considerations.  
3. Provide a portfolio of soil investment mechanisms that can be prioritized to scale healthy soil solutions.  

The “Soil Investment Guidance Report” incorporates feedback from interviews with 13 WBCSD member companies, and over 40 member companies and key stakeholders that were brought together over the course of five virtual sessions, called the Friends of Soil Health Dialogues.