But, Heechung Sung, who was appointed head of natural capital at the CEFC in June, said this was only the tip of the iceberg as the bank looked to be “more aggressive” in how it works with asset managers.
Ms Sung stressed that making an impact had to go hand-in-hand with delivering a market-based return, which meant working out how to also de-risk returns in agriculture. While the CEFC’s strategy is to invest with the larger asset managers in order to drive “specific targets” and performance outcomes – in the case of, this comes with a commitment from Paraway to reduce methane intensity by at least 30 per cent by 2030 across its 28 pastoral and cropping farms – it is also to educate and showcase to family farmers, who own 80 per cent of Australia farms, but who grapple with a lot of “carbon noise”, Ms Sung said.