Sustainability Signal – Q1 2026

The systemic picture

Seven of nine planetary boundaries are now breached. Ocean acidification crossed the threshold this year, joining climate change, biodiversity loss, land-system change, biogeochemical flows, freshwater change, and novel entities. Only ozone depletion and aerosol loading remain in the safe zone. The Planetary Health Check 2025 from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and PIK Potsdam confirmed the trend: the Earth system is moving further from the stable conditions that sustained human civilisation.

Research in Nature Geoscience modelling global ecosystem restoration found a maximum sequestration potential to 2100 of 96.9 gigatonnes of carbon – equivalent to just 3.7-12% of projected future emissions. Restoration is essential for biodiversity and resilience, but it cannot substitute for emissions reduction. This is the frame within which all landscape-level work sits this quarter.

Soil and farmland

At the practice level, the strongest signal came from a study in npj Sustainable Agriculture that produced the first robust global spatial assessment of where regenerative practices actually increase yields. Using Random Forest modelling trained on field-scale meta-analysis data: cover crops could improve yields on 45% of global cropland, agroforestry on 41%, no-tillage on 37%. The study maps these spatially – a practitioner-ready resource for cooperatives and advisors identifying which practices suit their specific agroecological zone.

A major review in Global Sustainability provided the strongest landscape-scale evidence yet for Conservation Agriculture – no soil disturbance, permanent soil cover, and diversified rotations. Conservation Agriculture now covers 200 million hectares globally (15% of cropland), doubled in a decade. Carbon sequestration rates of 0.5-0.9 tonnes CO2 per hectare per year, 70% fuel reductions, and greater resilience to droughts and floods. As Johan Rockström framed it: "We need both an energy transition and a soil transition."

The biological mechanisms behind these results are increasingly well understood. Research from Rutgers has documented how soil microorganisms deliver nutrients to plant roots within 4-6 hours – a biological precision no synthetic fertiliser matches. At higher photosynthetic efficiency, plants produce peak yield and peak quality simultaneously, challenging the longstanding assumption that farmers must choose between volume and value. And a major review in Nature Reviews Biodiversity confirmed soil biodiversity as a key driver of nutrient cycling, plant productivity, and climate regulation – strengthening the scientific case for biological over chemical soil management.

NatureServe's first comprehensive assessment of North American pollinators found over 22% of species at elevated extinction risk, with bees worst affected at 34.7%. Leafcutter bees (45.7%) and digger bees (42.9%) are the most threatened groups. These are the species that make farmland productive – their decline is not a wildlife story separate from agriculture, it's a direct threat to the soil and farmland systems that depend on them.

Freshwater and oceans

The starkest signal from the water world: migratory freshwater fish populations have declined 81% since 1970. Presented at the UN Convention on Migratory Species COP15 in March, the first global review in 15 years expanded the assessed species list from 3,000 to approximately 15,000. Ninety-seven percent of listed migratory fish species are now threatened with extinction. These fish sustain approximately 200 million people worldwide. Salmon, eels, and sturgeon are heading towards extinction. The primary drivers – dams, habitat fragmentation, pollution, overfishing, and climate change – are all landscape-level issues. Any landscape project near a river system should be considering fish passage and connectivity; this report will drive new transboundary cooperation frameworks and likely new funding streams for river restoration.

Ocean acidification's breach of the planetary boundary is the headline marine signal. Since the industrial era, ocean surface pH has fallen by approximately 0.1 units – a 30-40% increase in acidity. Cold-water corals, tropical reefs, and Arctic marine life are most at risk. On the restoration side, coral nurseries across the Caribbean are now producing over 40,000 corals annually, and Coral Vita has grown 100,000+ corals across 52 species using microfragmentation technology that accelerates growth from decades to months, doubling fish populations at restoration sites. But a paper in Restoration Ecology argues that restoration success metrics must incorporate ecosystem functioning, not just coral survival counts – and the broader scientific consensus remains that restoration cannot substitute for threat reduction. Emissions, pollution, and overfishing remain the primary levers.

Forests and peatlands

A study published in Nature analysed tree-ring nitrogen records from Sweden's 23.5-million-hectare forest area and found that rising atmospheric CO2 is depleting soil nitrogen – even in remote forests with minimal human impact. Forest growth is levelling off. The implication: the land carbon sink may be self-limiting. Forests absorb CO2, but the stimulated growth drains the nitrogen that trees need to keep growing. For practitioners managing woodland, hedgerow, or agroforestry systems for carbon, nitrogen cycling and soil biology management may become critical to sustaining sequestration outcomes over time.

Peatlands – which store more carbon than all the world's forests combined – sent two warning signals. A study in Global Change Biology compiled 58 macro-charcoal records and found that tropical peatland fires have reached their highest levels in at least 2,000 years, with sharp increases in Southeast Asian and Australasian regions linked to human activity. In the Congo Basin, ETH Zurich researchers found that lakes are releasing CO2 that is 2,170 to 3,500 years old – up to 40% of it from ancient peat. The Congo Basin's peatlands cover just 0.3% of global land surface but store one-third of all tropical peatland carbon. The assumption that this carbon was safely locked away is no longer safe.

Urban and built environment

Where the built world meets the living world – green infrastructure, habitat connectivity, and nature in development.

The boundary between "natural" and "built" is becoming less meaningful. Regulatory and design practice are converging on the same principle: development must deliver measurable ecological outcomes, not just minimise harm.

In the UK, two regulatory shifts this quarter made that principle enforceable. Biodiversity Net Gain expands to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects from May 2026 – major transport, energy, and water infrastructure must now achieve 10% biodiversity gain, maintained for 30 years. And Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act makes Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) mandatory for most new developments – permeable paving, swales, rain gardens, and bioretention move from planning guidance to enforced standards. Both signals point the same way: ecological function is becoming a non-negotiable output of the built environment.

At infrastructure scale, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Los Angeles entered its final construction phase – the world's largest wildlife crossing, reconnecting mountain lion habitat across the Ventura Freeway. With $114 million invested and completion expected in autumn 2026, it's a proof-of-concept for habitat connectivity infrastructure that other jurisdictions are watching closely.

City-scale greening is accelerating. Paris is on track for 170,000 trees by 2026 with a goal of 10-minute access to green space for all residents. Thirty-one mayors across C40 cities – including Los Angeles, Mumbai, Stockholm, and Sydney – have committed to 30-40% green or permeable surface coverage by 2030. And research this quarter confirmed what practitioners suspected about urban heat: botanical gardens deliver the strongest cooling effect (5.0°C ± 3.5), followed by wetlands (4.9°C) and green walls (4.1°C) – with a critical equity dimension, as low-income areas face 2-3°C higher heat island effects.

Carbon pricing: quality commands a premium

The EU Emissions Trading System hit EUR 90 per tonne in January before falling to EUR 69 after political noise about revision. The volatility matters less than the direction: cross-border carbon pricing is now live (CBAM certificates priced at EUR 75.36/t for Q1), and the structural demand for quality credits is unmistakable. High-integrity, CCP-eligible nature-based removal credits now command 300% premiums over low-quality alternatives. That's not a market distortion – it's a flight to quality that protects genuine landscape projects.

The minimum viable price for agricultural soil carbon remains $30 per tonne – the threshold at which MRV costs, farmer incentive payments, and project margins all work. Below that, farmer economics fail, which explains why many early carbon projects collapsed. The supply-demand gap is favourable: projected demand of 35-130 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year by 2030 against current supply below 30 million tonnes. Yet 84% of credits currently on the market are still considered high-risk. For landscape projects producing verified, additional outcomes – the market is moving decisively in your direction.

Insetting formalises

Rather than buying anonymous offsets on the voluntary market, food and agriculture companies including Nestle, Danone, and PepsiCo are buying carbon outcomes from their own supply chains. This quarter, the insetting model moved from practice to infrastructure: Verra's Scope 3 Standard (S3S) v1.0 is expected in 2026, enabling companies to generate tradeable "Intervention Units" from supply chain interventions on the Verra Registry. For a farmer already supplying a major buyer, the supply chain relationship becomes a formalised carbon revenue channel – not a separate market to navigate.

UK: BNG market matures, SFI expands

The UK Biodiversity Net Gain market, now two years old, is showing signs of maturation. Estimated annual demand sits at 5,500-7,500 statutory biodiversity units, with an implied transaction value of $175-360 million per year. But prices are softening – Other Neutral Grassland down 6% in the North and 3% in the South since October 2025 – as supply begins to outpace demand. The launch of BNG for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects in May 2026 should bring substantial new demand. For habitat bank operators: scarce habitats and regional specialisation command premiums; common habitat types face a buyer's market.

On the policy side, Defra announced expanded SFI actions for 2026 – cover cropping, low-input grassland, agroforestry – with a new management payment of £20 per hectare for the first 50 hectares. First application window opens June 2026 for small farms, September for all farms.

Revenue stacking: the emerging business model

Revenue stacking is the landscape business model emerging from this quarter's signals: the same land producing quality crops, carbon credits, biodiversity credits, soil health payments, and water quality payments simultaneously. This is the model that makes landscape-scale regeneration financially viable – moving beyond single-crop or single-credit economics.

The headline number

The UNEP State of Finance for Nature 2026, released in January, delivered the quarter's most striking figure: for every $1 invested in nature protection, $30 goes to destroying it. $7.3 trillion flowed into nature-negative activities in 2023; only $220 billion supported nature-based solutions – of which just $23 billion came from private finance. Annual NbS finance must increase 2.5 times to $571 billion by 2030, roughly 0.5% of global GDP. The gap is enormous, but so is the policy momentum closing it.

Institutional capital enters nature

The pattern is now unmistakable. Mark Tercek's journey from Goldman Sachs to The Nature Conservancy to a board seat at Cultivo is not an anomaly – senior financial professionals are moving into nature-based solutions because they see an asset class forming. Patient capital investors – pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments – are recognising that their long-term obligations actually require long-term thinking about natural systems.

The WEF's "50 Investible Opportunities for a New Nature Economy", published in March with Oliver Wyman, identified opportunities worth up to $10.1 trillion in annual revenues and savings by 2030 across precision agriculture, sustainable materials, industrial water management, and more. The framing matters: nature as an investible economy, not a philanthropic cause.

The global sustainable bond market is consolidating at $800-900 billion in 2026, down from above $1 trillion. But within that, transition bonds – the fastest-growing segment – are forecast to double to $40 billion. For landscape projects, transition finance is the relevant category: capital that bridges the gap between current practice and verified sustainable outcomes.

New facilities launching

Several new mechanisms entered the landscape this quarter, each addressing a different gap in the capital stack:

• Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) – launched at COP30, uses investment returns to value tropical forest services
• One Ocean Finance Facility – UNEP-backed, blends public and private finance from ocean-dependent industries
• Tiger Landscape Investment Fund – catalyses private investment into nature-positive businesses in tiger landscapes
• Cali Fund – earmarks at least 50% for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

Insurance for nature: pilots become products

The parametric insurance market – estimated at $21-24 billion in 2026 and growing at 13% annually – is moving nature-specific products from theory to deployment. Coral reef parametric insurance is now live: The Nature Conservancy in Hawaii (hurricane trigger) and UNDP with Swiss Re in Indonesia (storm intensity trigger with automatic reef restoration payout). These are not pilots – they are products, with triggers, payouts, and restoration protocols. For landscape projects near coastlines, estuaries, or coral systems, parametric insurance is becoming a viable risk management layer.

At national scale, ISEP made the case that UK ecosystem services, valued at £1.8 trillion in 2022 – equivalent to 72% of GDP – should be classified as Critical National Infrastructure. Environmental degradation poses potential GDP losses of 6-12% by the 2030s. These are economic arguments, and they strengthen the case for public capital flowing toward landscape management.

The regulatory landscape this quarter can be summarised in one phrase from S&P Global's sustainability desk: "Politics is the short game, commerce is the long game."

The multi-speed reality is unmistakable. The EU is settling into implementation. The US is fragmented and politically contested. China has moved to mandatory reporting. The Middle East is actively building frameworks. But companies operating across jurisdictions must report regardless of which government is in power. Regulatory demand for sustainability data is structural, not political.

In the UK specifically, several shifts affect land management directly. The 30x30 commitment (the global target to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030) is entering its key implementation phase – the Nature Restoration Fund, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) refinement, and the Land Use Framework all have practical implications for landscape managers. Environmental Outcomes Reports (EORs) are replacing traditional Environmental Impact Assessments in planning reforms. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings regulation arrives via Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rules in late 2026, with a new regime from June 2028.

Data maturity has reached Stage 4: the progression from reporting to collecting to auditing to financial materiality. Companies must now tie sustainability data to financial outcomes. For landscape actors, this means the data they generate – verified carbon removals, measured biodiversity outcomes, documented water quality improvements – must meet a higher bar, but commands more value when it does.

The WEF Global Risks Report 2026 confirmed what landscape practitioners know: environmental concerns dominate the 10-year outlook. The top three long-term risks are extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, and critical Earth system change. Public opinion remains firmly pro-sustainability: the EU Eurobarometer shows 85% see climate change as serious, over 80% support climate neutrality by 2050, and 90% want faster renewable deployment.

The central question this quarter: how does landscape-generated data reach the institutions that need it?

AI is improving carbon credit verification by enhancing data consistency and market connectivity. Better analytics reduces transaction friction and supports stronger price signals – which matters most for smaller landscape projects where transaction costs can eat the margin.

Adaptation indicators received their own measurement framework this quarter: 59 indicators agreed at COP30 (the 2025 UN climate summit), with governments given two years to operationalise them. Adaptation has long lagged behind mitigation in terms of metrics – this begins to close that gap, and will eventually create reporting demand for adaptation outcomes that landscape projects deliver.

At the intersection of our two domains – AI and sustainability – one signal worth noting: AI adverse outcomes climbed from 30th to 5th in the WEF's 10-year risk ranking. AI governance and sustainability governance are converging. How AI is developed, deployed, and governed has direct environmental and social implications. It's a cross-domain dynamic we track closely.

None of the science, markets, capital, rules, or tools in this briefing matter if the people managing the land can't stay on it. This section tracks the human dimension – the viability of the communities and livelihoods on which every landscape outcome depends.

Producer viability

UK farming this quarter offered a stark case study of what climate stress does to agricultural communities – and the pattern isn't unique to Britain. 98% of UK farmers reported extreme weather impacts. Wheat and barley production fell 20%. The sector absorbed £828 million in losses, and average farm debt reached £300,000. The mental health toll is severe, well-documented, and rarely given the weight it deserves in sustainability conversations.

This isn't a UK-specific problem. From the Midwest to the Sahel, producers are absorbing climate impacts while being told to transition their practices. The question landscape projects must answer is practical: how do you ask a farmer carrying £300,000 in debt to invest in soil biology? The science is clear. The economics – as we saw in The Market – are starting to work. But any discussion of landscape transition that treats producers as inputs rather than people isn't serious.

Indigenous and community land rights

The Cali Fund – established at the resumed COP16 in Rome – earmarks at least 50% of its resources for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. This isn't a footnote to a finance announcement. It's a recognition that the communities with the deepest knowledge of landscape management have historically received the least support. The first Indigenous-nominated marine sanctuary in US history – the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, 4,543 square miles of Central California coastline, co-stewarded by the Northern Chumash Tribal Council – entered its operational phase this quarter. A model for Indigenous-led conservation at scale.

The transition question

The positive tipping points research from Professor Tim Lenton at the University of Exeter offers perspective: transitions, once they reach critical mass, accelerate on their own. Norway's EV adoption went from 0.25% to 84%. The UK completed coal phase-out faster than any projection. The pattern suggests that landscape regeneration, once the economics prove out, could follow the same self-reinforcing trajectory. But every transition has winners and losers. Who bears the cost of changing practices? Whose livelihoods are displaced while new revenue models mature? The just transition framework – widely applied in energy – has barely been articulated for land. That's a gap this publication will track.