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Planet Tracker: insights to enable sustainable finance

Author: Finance for the Future

Published: 20 Sep 2024

Award Winner Planet Tracker logo
How a not-for-profit organisation is providing insightful, actionable data and research to the financial and policy sectors to help investors make more sustainable choices.

Focusing on four key areas – food and land use, oceans, plastics and textiles – Planet Tracker aims to give investors the tools and sector knowledge they need to drive long-lasting change both in their portfolios and in the broader economy.

In 2023, Planet Tracker published its Financial Markets Roadmap for Transforming the Global Food System, detailing actionable steps investors can take to reach a sustainable food system.

Contributing to sustainable business models

The Roadmap identifies major systemic issues and risks within the food sector and presents a clear and applicable plan for investors to tackle them.

Dominic Lyle, Director of Communications at Planet Tracker, says: “The report used a data set that included over 400,000 companies across 160 countries covering the whole food system, including seafood.”

It sets out six meaningful steps investors can take to transform the food system in the long and short term, with detailed policy recommendations to achieve them. These are to:

  • require fully traceable supply chains; halve food loss and waste;
  • stop funding deforestation;
  • cut agri-methane emissions by 45%;
  • encourage regenerative agricultural systems; and invest in alternative proteins.

Planet Tracker’s food roadmap aims to show that a sustainable, profitable and nature-positive food system is achievable if investors use their capital to change practices. With active engagement and strategic investments, investors and financial institutions can avoid significant future risks at minimal cost.

Generating tangible benefits

“Agriculture is massively consequential to the health of the world economy and the environment – it contributes 20% of the world’s GDP and one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions,” says Lyle.

The global food system currently endangers 86% of the species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. By the time food has reached consumers, one-third of all calories produced are lost or wasted.

Dominic Lyle, Director of Communications at Planet Tracker

The report argues that the financial stability of the food system, and by extension the wider economy, depends on whether the objectives set out in the report can be achieved quickly. If financial markets fail to follow these steps and address the harms caused by the global food system, they face significant risks to their investment portfolios, with individual food firms standing to lose 26% of their value.

The report also illustrates that a small investment can unlock major economic benefits. “It estimates that the economy could add $1.5tn in value by reducing food waste and protecting against harms to biodiversity,” says Lyle. “These outcomes could be achieved by strategic investments totalling £300- 350bn annually – equivalent to just 4% of current annual investments.”

Recipients of award certificate

Engagement to drive change

Planet Tracker accompanied the release of the Food Roadmap with a wide ranging media campaign. Peter Elwin, Planet Tracker’s Head of Food and Land Use and the principal author of the study, has been featured on Sky News and CGTN. The report has also been featured in a wide variety of press outlets, including Business Green and CityWire.

“Planet Tracker’s roadmap…represents a clear step forward in driving change in financial markets and gives a clear framework for holding investors, financial institutions and portfolio companies to account,” says Lyle.

Recipient of award certificate

Nature and Biodiversity Leader

Planet Tracker was formed with the central aim of spurring a significant, irreversible transformation of global financial activities – by 2030 – to protect the health of the planet.

To accomplish this, Planet Tracker seeks to change the practices of financial decision makers to avoid ecological collapse and to show how environmental data can be used to drive ambitious positive financial outcomes.

Through its reports and analyses – and a programme of proactive engagement with financial institutions – it provides real world examples of how natural capital and ecological decline impact both the financial community and the companies in which they invest. Planet Tracker sees the roadmap as just the beginning of the transformation of the food sector.

The judges' view

The judges said Planet Tracker had an impressive, comprehensive approach.

It tackles a notoriously difficult area – food systems – and connects high quality academic research with decision makers.

What is more, it presents this research – reviewed by academics and companies alike – in ways that are meaningful to market participants. Finally, it leverages financial markets, using investors as a catalyst for change.

Planet Tracker is a Nature and Biodiversity Leader because it focuses on deforestation in its wider work. The judges also noted that the food sector is absolutely linked to biodiversity, and they commended the applicant for creating a comprehensive database focused on nature.