From grassroots to global scale impact, decisions that change the world start with good data. Impact investors are calling out for independent, decision-grade data – proof of measurable impact, informed and verified through science. This panel will look at a trailblazing initiative to scale impact measurement from the micro to macro level through regenerative agriculture, and discuss what is needed to enable impact investment to be unleashed at scale. The growing momentum behind New Zealand’s data-driven Calm the Farm programme shows what is possible when investors, frontline communities and advisors work collaboratively, differently and urgently to take climate action.
Speaker profiles:
Professor Shaun Hendy is a passionate advocate for science and innovation. Shaun heads up Toha Science, an independent science agency for social and environmental impact, and he is a key leader of the science-based approach to New Zealand’s world-lauded Covid-19 response. His three books, Get Off the Grass, Silencing Science and #NoFly, offer a vision of NZ as a leader in the scientific measurement of impact allowing good science and clever technology to elevate better outcomes for our people and our environment.
Dr Gwen Grelet is a senior researcher at Manaaki-Whenua Landcare Research, a New Zealand government research institute. She has an extensive track record in the genetics, diversity and ecology of plant-beneficial fungi, and how soil life evolved to support the ecosystems we live in today. Working collaboratively with scientists, farmers, governmental and non-for-profit organisations and various industry leaders, her research is now primarily focussed on New Zealand and Australian agroecosystems, looking at practices and pathways for on-farm innovation and landscape management, such as regenerative agriculture, that would allow food production within the bounds of the Earth’s environmental, economic and social limits.
This session will also include a voice for regenerative agriculture investor and a farmer, to present the different perspectives of those most closely involved in Calm the Farm.
