SDG Cases - Sustainable Finance for Landscape Restoration in Spain

Commonland had the ambition to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land worldwide by 2040 – 5% of the then 2 billion hectares of degraded land on the planet. Encompassing 1 million hectares, Altiplano Estepario in Southern Spain was one of its successful restoration initiatives. However, in order to scale up the existing projects in Spain and in other parts of the world, Commonland first needed to convince local farmers that it was financially attractive for them to switch from conventional farming to sustainable farming combined with reforestation.

Learning objectives:

1. Financially evaluate a landscape restoration project on the local level;

2. Strategically analyse a landscape restoration project from investors’ perspective;

3. Identify where the intersection between sustainability – in particular, landscape restoration – and finance lies;

4. Explore ways to incorporate environmental and social gains into current finance models;

5. Understand the concept of systemic change and explore the barriers, risks and opportunities of responsible / impact investment.