What does responsible investment look like in the 21st century? This edition is dedicated to helping provide investors with tools and resources for identifying responsible companies and projects in agricultural, forest, and seafood commodities, with a specific focus on a sector of mounting interest to many investors: aquaculture.

A rapidly growing global population, accelerating consumption, dietary shifts, climate change and other factors are driving unprecedented price volatility, resource shortages, and other risks in soft commodity supply chains. These challenges pose material, reputational, and systemic risk to investors. WWF seeks to untangle this complexity. Providing distilled guidance based on leading industry practice, The 2050 Criteria is designed to serve as a field guide for investors to access mainstream agricultural, forest, and seafood commodities in a responsible manner.

The need for sustainable palm oil is increasingly recognized by consumers and governments alike—placing industry and the financial community increasingly in the spotlight. In this edition, WWF’s Asia Finance & Commodities expert, Jeanne Stampe, explores the challenges and opportunities of sustainable palm oil for the finance sector.

A first-of-its-kind study for both the palm oil industry and agricultural commodities in general, Profitability and Sustainability in Palm Oil Production comprehensively examines the financial costs and benefits of adopting certification. The report was produced jointly by WWF, CDC, the UK’s development finance institution, and FMO, the Dutch development bank.

What is the impact of certification on the business bottom line? This edition is dedicated to addressing this challenge and providing insights to help producers and their financial backers navigate the complexities of investing in sustainability.

We are witnessing a rapid increase in production of credibly certified soft commodities (albeit often from a small base), and, consequently, growing interest in this asset class from our finance sector partners and the broader financial community. This edition explores how financial institutions can engage on commodity standards.

Compliance with credible voluntary standards is becoming the default performance hurdle for many institutions, and “certified” products are serving as the common currency of supply chain assurance. These tools are increasingly important as we see large scale investment into soft commodity production and an urgent need to increase the clarity with which investors make decisions about investments. Standards and better environmental and social governance (ESG) metrics will both play a role here, and this edition highlights recent developments.

The market for carbon credits and other environmental benefits from forests (often characterized under the acronym REDD+, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation), received a major boost at the Cancun climate meeting last December. In this issue, Iain Henderson and Steve Ruddell, two of WWF’s forest carbon advisors, explore REDD+ and emerging opportunities in carbon markets.

Over the past four years the Florida Ranchlands Environmental Services Project (FRESP) has been field testing elements of a Payment for Environmental Services (PES) program where cattle ranchers can use working agricultural land to provide valuable water-related environmental services, using market-like concepts to increase the provision of environmental services. This edition profiles opportunities for valuing natural capital.

Coral reefs are being lost to the world at a rate five times faster than rainforests, often as a result of polluted farm run-off. The good news is that solutions are being pioneered in Australia as a result of innovative lending, demonstrating that modern technology can significantly improve farm profitability and reduce pollution at the same time.