Regenerative rising: Insights from Climate Week NYC

It was abundantly clear at Climate Week NYC last week that momentum for regenerative agriculture is building.

Regenerative agriculture is a key pathway to build natural capital wealth for farmers as they build up assets like soil health, clean water, and biodiversity, and reduce greenhouse (GHG) emissions. Financial mechanisms that mobilize investment in farmer adoption of regenerative agriculture cover a wide range of options—carbon markets, inset schemes, and government subsidies, and more. But they are not available to every farmer, and some, like sustainable finance products, are in their infancy. The market and policy environment that enables regenerative agriculture is therefore evolving.

During Climate Week, RBC Thought Leadership, along with Nature United, presented Unearthing Value, a new report on how nature can play a critical role in pro-growth agendas. Lisa Ashton, RBC’s Director of Agriculture Policy and co-author of the report, spent a few days at the NY conference.

Here’s some of what she heard:

• Carbon tunnel vision is not all bad. Critics say that focusing solely on the climate benefits (carbon removal, GHG mitigation) of things like cover crops, tillage reduction and improved nutrient management, ignores the many other ecosystem services that regenerative agriculture can offer, including improved productivity, water filtration, and enhanced biodiversity. But this narrow focus has delivered real breakthroughs on GHG accounting, measurement and market access, that might not have happened if there wasn’t a concerted effort from governments, agri-food supply chains and the sustainability sector on the climate action benefits of regenerative agriculture. The breakthroughs in GHG measuring, reporting and verification protocols has provided a platform from which to build other regenerative agriculture benefits. For example, GHG protocols allow for accounting of soil carbon, which is a proxy for soil biodiversity, health, and resilience. This allows for other benefits to be bolted on to climate-focused initiatives like carbon insetting programs.

• It’s time to get more value from dollars spent on regenerative agriculture. A few landmark investments include the $704 million On-Farm Climate Action Fund in Canada, the $4.2 billion from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities in the U.S., and PepsiCo’s $300 million-plus investment in regenerative agriculture. These dollars and others have started building the groundwork of socializing the importance of environmental resilience in farming systems at scale, building frameworks for best practices for farmers and agronomists, and agri-food supply chain programs. New dollars can build upon this foundation and go further in delivering funding directly to farmers to drive impact. Partnerships can also help make dollars work harder. Companies, governments, and farmers investing in the same practices and regions can match dollars and leverage partnerships to fill gaps in their own expertise, such as food companies partnering with agribusinesses that already have agronomists on staff to work with farmers on-the-ground.

• Developing a rigid regenerative agriculture definition may not be a good use of time. There is still a push within the agriculture and sustainability sectors to define it. But drawing a boundary around what is and is not regenerative agriculture may leave some farmers and production systems outside of scope that are indeed adopting practices that deliver on the principle of regenerative, producing positive outcomes for the environment and farmers’ bottom lines. The tone was clear among stakeholders at the conference: focus on delivering programs that work for farmers and create measurable outcomes, and stop worrying about the definition of regenerative agriculture.

Three things we are watching

1. Product Carbon Footprints. An approach for agri-food companies to track the total amount of GHG emissions associated with the products they are purchasing throughout their journey along the supply chain. This approach differs from carbon offsetting and insetting, as the carbon footprint is directly tied to the food product. Product carbon footprints also allow for companies to achieve several supply chain ambitions, including influencing climate action, building transparency and traceability, and boosting product features for sustainability-minded consumers. While it’s an approach to address the issue of “freeloading companies that haven’t invested in regenerative agriculture, it has its own issues that stem from the granularity in data and supply chain connectivity that is required.

2. Regenerative agriculture is expanding from a business-to-business model to business-to-consumer with labelling on food packaging. Investments in regenerative agriculture has largely been driven by agri-food companies and agribusiness sustainability targets and a desire to build resilience in their sourcing region. Now, consumers are increasingly being engaged on regenerative agriculture labelling. With more front-of-package labelling promoting regenerative practices, consumers can pick products based on their conservation attributes. These labels are often backed by standards like the Rainforest Alliance’s Regenerative Agriculture Certification.

3. Investments in water are growing to build climate resilience. People are experiencing climate change effects most starkly through water. Farmers are no exception. Droughts, more heavy rainfall events, and unseasonal precipitation are adding more volatility to farm management. Investments and strategies to build water resilience in agriculture are growing. Examples include the European Union’s Water Resilience Strategy released in Summer 2025, which features a water saving strategy target for 40% of agriculture land by 2030 and infrastructure investments in irrigation systems in Alberta and the Niagara region of Ontario.