Regenerative landscapes move from commitments to implementation, as companies call for greater co-investment 

Antalya, November 9, 2026 – The Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes (AARL) today released the 2026 update to its annual landscape survey, showing that private sector action on regenerative agriculture and landscape transformation is maturing and stabilizing. AARL is co-chaired by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and is part of the Global Climate Action Agenda facilitated by the Climate Champions Team. AARL brings together over 40 participants and partners whose programs span 90 commodities and 116 countries. Participants plan to put nearly 100 million hectares under regeneration by 2030, of which 66 million hectares are already in active regenerative programs in 2026, with an ambition to reach 9.5 million farmers by 2030. Reported investment commitments through 2030 are $6.4 billion. 

The figures reflect a coalition increasingly focused on delivery. Within AARL’s footprint this year, 60% of participants expanded the scale of their programs. Furthermore, the share of total committed hectares in active programs has risen from 50% to approximately 70%, showing a growing proportion of commitments moving into implementation. The findings point to a maturing private sector agenda: companies are converting ambition into investable, measurable, and farmer-centered implementation. 

Companies are investing in regenerative agriculture to strengthen supply-chain resilience alongside climate, nature and livelihood outcomes. Climate volatility, soil degradation, water stress and input-price exposure are increasing the urgency of farmer transition. Landscape-level approaches can help companies and partners address shared risks beyond individual sourcing programs while supporting long-term food security. 

Practical, cost-effective monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) remains central to credible outcomes and investable programs. The latest AARL survey shows that MRV systems are becoming more widespread. Between the 2025 and 2026 surveys, the share of respondents measuring some or all of their programs increased for carbon (68% to 86%), soil health (53% to 71%), biodiversity (45% to 52%), water (52% to 71%) and farmer livelihoods (47% to 52%). In addition, 57% of respondents now use SAI Platform’s Regenerating Together framework, a sign of growing convergence around common measurement approaches.  

The clearest message from the 2026 update is that scaling regenerative landscapes will require stronger co-investment and collaboration models. Companies continue to invest directly in their own supply chains, but many risks affecting agricultural productivity and supply security are landscape-level. The AARL survey finds that 86% of respondents view investment beyond their own value chains as very important or essential to sustainable and resilient value chains. 

Unlocking co-investment to scale regenerative landscapes 

WBCSD launched a business-backed Regenerative Landscapes Policy Agenda at UNCCD COP17, which highlights three private sector priorities for scaling regenerative landscapes: sharing costs, risks and benefits between public and private actors and across landscapes and value chains; harmonizing sustainability information for investment decisions; and improving coherence across policy, finance and data systems. These business priorities are being brought forward to the UNFCCC COP31 through WBCSD’s contributions as Co-chair of the COP31 Food Security and Agribusiness Working Group and through the 2026 AARL survey, which has examined the barriers and opportunities for co-financing and risk-sharing. 

The findings show that companies see co-financing as a practical route to greater scale, cost and risk sharing, and landscape-level action. In total, 73% of respondents are actively pursuing co-financing or are interested in doing so. Of these, 24% already have co-financing in place for their programs, a further 29% want to increase the level of co-financing they are doing, and 24% are interested in co-financing but would require more enabling conditions in place to do so.  

Respondents most frequently identify corporates and value-chain partners (90%), government and public-sector sources (62%), philanthropies (48%), and development finance institutions or multilateral development banks (43%) as partners they are most likely to work with on co-financing. This underscores that companies are frequently coinvesting alongside other companies in landscapes, as highlighted in several examples from last year’s Guidebook for Landscape Investments. In terms of instruments, practice-based farmer incentives (76%), outcome-based incentives (71%) and longer-term offtake agreements (71%) were cited as the most important for respondents to reach their regenerative landscapes ambition by 2030. Instruments like guarantees, first-loss capital, and concessional debt or equity were viewed as less important. This points to a potentially underutilized opportunity to bring different types of financing together into an integrated stack: corporate funding can provide demand signals and farmer incentives, while public and concessional capital can reduce early-stage risk and commercial finance can help scale proven models. 

What is holding more co-financing back? Survey respondents identified a wide range of barriers around the transition economics and availability of financing, with no single barrier emerging as dominant. This suggests a systemic challenge that requires action on multiple fronts. There was greater consensus around potential solutions, with respondents prioritizing shared MRV and traceability (62%), long-term offtake and demand (57%), public-sector participation (57%), and blended finance and guarantees (48%).  

These findings have implications for policymakers, standard-setters and MDBs, who each have a role in improving how co-financing structures are designed and deployed at landscape level. In 2026, AARL has also helped translate the findings into action by combining corporate demand, landscape-level coordination, financing architecture, MRV harmonization and policy alignment to prepare investment-ready pipelines. 

AARL’s landscape accelerators are turning the financing model into action 

AARL’s landscape accelerators translate global ambition into place-based implementation, bringing companies, producers, governments and financiers together to develop investable transition plans, strengthen MRV, and align policy priorities. 

In Brazil, the Landscape Accelerator Brazil (LAB) brings together companies and partners around blended finance, aligned public policy and cost-effective MRV. Previous research from the LAB Action Plan identified a potential USD $93 billion investment opportunity across the Cerrado and Amazon, with modeled average returns of 19% IRR over ten years. 

Over the past year, LAB has developed investment cases for three partner programs and consulted more than 15 capital providers responsible for investing $20 billion into nature-based solutions in Brazil to inform its investor diagnostic. This work has supported an Investment Readiness Tool that assesses programs across 15 criteria, identifies financing gaps and clarifies investor requirements. Initial applications focus on coffee and soy/grains rotations in Brazil, supporting programs to prepare for fundraising and companies to identify potential sources of co-financing. 

In India, AARL launched the India Landscape Accelerator (ILA) to strengthen and scale established climate-smart agriculture programs through state-level public-private partnerships. The coalition engages 12 companies and 10 partner organizations, has analyzed more than 80 programs and published the ILA Launchpad to replicate proven approaches at faster speed and lower cost. Its priorities include rice and other crop rotations, sugarcane, spices and dairy, alongside shared MRV and co-investment pathways. ILA aims to accelerate investment and action at the state level by connecting corporate participation and public priorities to unlock greater co-financing and scale. 

AARL is also partnering with RAIZ, the Resilient Agriculture Investment for net Zero and degradation, launched at COP30. RAIZ is hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Brazil (MAPA) under the FAO FAST Partnership with the collaboration of the UNCCD G20 Global Land Initiative and the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU). RAIZ acts as an accelerator to map, mobilize funding and scale restoration of degraded agricultural land. AARL’s landscape accelerators can contribute practical approaches to co-financing, public-private partnership design, MRV and project preparation to help turn these ambitions into investment-ready programs. 

Outlook: connecting finance to implementation 

As leaders gather at COP31 this week, food security is high on the agenda amid growing climate shocks, input volatility and pressure on agricultural productivity. Governments, development partners and businesses have a shared interest in supporting a productive, climate-resilient and financially viable farming sector that underpins food security, farmer livelihoods and resilient supply chains and business models.  

In this context, AARL is helping to connect public- and private-sector efforts by aligning corporate investment, public incentives, development finance, and implementation support around landscape-level programs that strengthen food security, farmer livelihoods and supply-chain resilience. 

The AARL survey results demonstrate that companies are making progress in implementing their commitments to regenerative landscapes, and that the next wave of scale will be unlocked through strengthened support for co-investment and enabling policy, finance, and data infrastructure. To accelerate implementation, AARL invites companies, governments, investors, MDBs, DFIs, philanthropies, and implementation partners to work together on investment-ready landscape pipelines and farmer-centered incentives and risk-sharing structures to translate capital into measurable outcomes for food security, climate, nature, and livelihoods.