ForumforAg Food Systems Podcast Summary

In this edition of the Food Systems Podcast, recorded at the Forum’s Annual Conference 2025, Alex Turk talks to Tobias Bandel, Co-founder, The Landbanking Group, and a farmer.

Here is a summary of the conversation.

You gave an inspirational talk with Cherry Muijsson, who is Chief Investment Officer for Multi-Asset Strategies and Solutions at BlackRock. You opened by saying “nature is not business as usual”: starting from there, let’s move to why you were on stage with an investment officer?

I was sharing the stage with BlackRock because we both face the same challenge: our most reliable service provider, nature, doesn’t perform anymore. My business as a farmer is based on a reliable supply of ecosystem services like clean water and fertile soil, but this no longer works and is no longer free. BlackRock and other asset managers now realize they have undervalued nature and must price in natural capital risks because real assets are at stake. So this is where both worlds come together, which is good momentum.

Are we saying that climate risk is almost a missed investment opportunity?

Yes, risk reduction is an opportunity. Financing a transition towards more regenerative, de-risked supply chains makes an enterprise more financially interesting. Banks are now saying that if a company can disclose its natural capital exposure data, they get a more complete view of their risk profile and thus better lending conditions. So again, this is where the two worlds come together.

You focus on nature as an asset, nature as a business case, on the balance sheet. You talked about monetization and measurability as two key aspects to make it work. Can you elaborate?

The Landbanking Group was founded out of frustration that sustainability projects always got stuck in the “pilot world”. Sourcing sustainably was a competitive disadvantage because it added costs. We realized that chartered accountants now see nature as a finite risk. If a company can demonstrably show that they are investing in risk reduction, it can be considered an asset because it creates corporate value and ensures business continuity. We use our tool, Landler, to measure outcomes in an identifiable way, so we can prove the future economic value of these investments.

We talk a lot about the “how-to” at the forum. How is breaking out of “pilot world” going, and how does your voice resonate with the people here today?

We need a call for pragmatism and to move away from a wishful-thinking mindset. Instead of telling farmers what to do, we need to focus on outcome-based results. Farmers know best what to do on their land, how to implement practices that are economically meaningful and build resilience. That is what we measure. The only thing they have to do for us is upload their shape files, which are then matched with remote sensing and AI-based data on natural capital development. This is the basis for monetization and helps cut through the difficulty and bureaucracy.

What are you – in association with BlackRock – going to do next? Where’s your focus for the rest of 2025?

Our focus is to take the measurement we’ve developed and channel it at scale. We have a few hundred thousand, if not millions, of hectares being uploaded. We will package this measurement into a financial product with an investment bank to be traded with institutions like BlackRock. This helps make the translation from sustainability metrics into financial reporting. We want to take this investment case and make it happen.