Welcome to the latest episode of the Sustainable Commodities Podcast! This week, hosts Barnaby Patchett and Judith Murdoch sit down with Alejandro Diaz, Landscape Finance Manager at Commonland.

Commonland is an international NGO pioneering large-scale, long-term landscape restoration. Unlike traditional conservation efforts that focus solely on nature, Commonland treats landscapes as holistic systems where the environment, local communities, and businesses must thrive together. Alejandro takes us through the complex world of landscape finance and explains what it really takes to fund the transition to regenerative agriculture.

In this episode, we unpack:

• The 4 Returns Framework: How Commonland measures success through four key metrics: Return of Inspiration, Social Returns, Natural Returns, and Financial Returns.

• Moving Beyond Short-Term Funding: Why standard three-year grants hold conservation back, and why restoring a landscape actually requires 20-year, flexible, and patient capital.

• De-risking Regenerative Agriculture: The massive financial and operational hurdles farmers face when changing their practices, and why they cannot be expected to shoulder that risk alone.

• The AlVelAl Success Story: A look at Commonland’s work in southeastern Spain, where a cooperative of over 600 farmers is regenerating a million hectares of almond and olive production using shared resources like machinery banks and premium pricing.

• Landscapes vs. Supply Chains: Why corporations and investors need to look beyond their narrow commodity supply chains and start investing in the broader resilience of the regions they source from.

If you are interested in blended finance, regenerative agriculture, and how we can practically fund a more resilient food system, this is a must-listen.

Links
Commonland
One Nine Nine
Murdoch Associates