Consultant - Australian Taxonomy Agriculture

at  Climate Bonds Initiative

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.

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 will be the project’s focal points to liaise with national and international stakeholders (including the Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use Criteria Technical Advisory Group and the Taxonomy Technical Advisory Committee) as well as the ASFI Team. They should leverage your existing knowledge of the Agricultural sector in Australia and globally.

You will be working closely with Climate Bonds Standards lead on Agriculture, the Head of Taxonomies and the consortium’s partner to undertake the following outputs:

• Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use Criteria Methodology paper – the paper will set out the sector scoping and context and form the basis of Criteria development within the Taxonomy including the approach to the Do No Significant Harm (DNSH) and Minimum Social Safeguards (MSS) components. The criteria will be for two environmental objectives (Climate Mitigation and Environmental Protection)
• Prepare workplan, templates, and any other tools for the process of managing the Technical Advisory Committee (TAG) and the Taxonomy Technical Expert Group (TTEG) in collaboration with ASFI
• Draft / review presentation slides for TAG and TTEG meetings.
• Facilitate the conference calls and co-chair the calls with a Climate Bonds representative
• Compile and summarise comments and discussions in the TAG and TTEG meetings within 3 working days
• Draft Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use Criteria Taxonomy Paper – full detail of the Criteria and rationale for the decisions taken
• Review and address comments received during public consultation into the final documents
• Final Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use Criteria Document – full detail of the Criteria including the DNSH and MSS component of the criteria
• Create an FAQ document to support the Criteria dissemination and join webinars/conferences to socialise the criteria

These outputs and deliverables will be further defined once the consultants have been recruited.

REQUIREMENTS

The consultant should be able to demonstrate alignment with the following criteria:

• Have clear and extensive understanding of the Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use landscape of Australia as well as knowledge of the relevant policies of the Australian government and knowledge on climate mitigation strategies for the agriculture sector (globally and/or in the Australian context).
• Demonstrate experience as lead or technical consultants that have assisted similar project with stakeholder management
• Basic knowledge of thematic finance products including green bonds
• Knowledge of international climate finance, green taxonomies, green technical screening and Do No Significant Harm criteria
• Excellent communications skills and written English
• Excellent presentation skills including the use of PowerPoint

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.