Consultant - Australian Taxonomy Agriculture

The Climate Bonds Initiative (Climate Bonds) is involved in the development of more than 20 taxonomies and has been at the forefront of sustainable finance for over a decade. The organisation’s expertise and skills offer a longstanding track record of taxonomy development work, technical expertise and reputation in standard-setting as well as deep sector-specific technical knowledge and assessment abilities.

 Climate Bonds has been recruited by the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute to support the design of the Australian Sustainable Finance Taxonomy. The first phase of the Taxonomy development project started in July 2023 with the design of the Energy, Built Environment and the Mining Criteria and included the publication of the Draft Taxonomy paper in May 2024 for public consultation. In the second phase of the project, Climate Bonds is now recruiting an agriculture, forestry and land use expert (preferably located in Australia) that can support the development of the Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use Technical Screening Criteria of the Taxonomy.

Purpose and Objectives:

The purpose of the project is to provide specialised professional services to lead the design and development of the Australian Sustainable Finance Taxonomy’s Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use Criteria in collaboration with the Climate Bonds Standards and the ASFI Teams. In general, creating national taxonomies helps the financial and non-financial sector identify green sectors and activities which can mobilise public and private capital with speed and scale to finance the transition to low emissions and resilient economies.

The ultimate long-term goals of the project and of the Taxonomy are:

• To develop standardised definitions for sustainable economic activities and sustainable investments to attain priority environmental and sustainability goals in Australia. These definitions should be in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement to keep global temperature well below 2 degrees C and ideally aiming for 1.5 degrees C;
• To increase the Australia’s attractiveness to responsible investors, including those pursuing impact-investing strategies in the domestic and international arena;
• To support the growth of domestic sustainable finance markets; and
• To enable tracking and reporting of public expenditures and private investments addressing specific sustainability issues, based on criteria that are based on science and aligned with international best practice.

Scope of Services and Deliverables:

Climate Bonds is seeking a consultant (ideally located in Australia) that will lead the development of the Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use Criteria of the Australian Sustainable Finance Taxonomy. You …