By Lynda Kiernan
Hancock Natural Resource Group (HNRG) announced it has completed an initial sustainability evaluation on select managed properties in California, Washington, and Wisconsin, which produce almonds, pistachios, apples, and cranberries.
Part of Manulife Investment Management’s Private Markets platform, HNRG’s agricultural investment group was founded in 1990, to become one of the largest managers of farmland investments, overseeing approximately 400,000 acres of prime farmland across key production regions in California, the U.S. Midwest, the Mississippi Delta, the Pacific Northwest, the Southern Plains, and the Southeast U.S., as well as in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia, and in Quebec, and Alberta, Canada.
“We have always believed that ‘good stewardship is good business’ and the inaugural examination confirms that, from an operational perspective, we are safeguarding our most valuable assets, our people and the environment,” said Boyd Corkins, COO, Hancock Farmland Services.
The examination found that the properties fully conform to new standards for sustainable agricultural production and farmland management developed by the Sustainable Agriculture Working Group – a coalition of two non-profit environmental groups and eight companies, including HNRG, that together own and manage more than 3 million acres of farmland around the world.
“Sustainability is core to our values as an active investment manager,” added William Peressini, president and CEO, HNRG. “Confirming that we meet this new standard was the next logical step in our ongoing commitment to ESG integration for our clients and the communities in which we operate.”
The lack of a universal sustainability standard that could be applied across varying crops, scales of operations, production systems, and geographies has been a challenge when trying to establish transparency using quantification, noted Brian Kernohan, chief sustainability officer, HNRG, who said, “We’re optimistic that this new standard will help bring transparency to the market and drive widespread adoption for the industry. We believe this is an important area of focus, especially for investors that want to align their portfolios with environmental, social and governance goals.”
To conduct the examination of performance, HNRG commissioned K·Coe Isom, a top consulting and CPA firm focused on the food and ag industries. K·Coe Isom was tasked with determining conformance to the principles, objectives, performance measures, and indicators framed within the Standard that had been set by the Sustainable Agriculture Working Group.
Once completed, the survey found zero non-conformances, three opportunities for improvement, and 13 notable practices, leading K·Coe Isom to conclude in its report that HNRG’s U.S. agricultural operations fully conform to the Standard for sustainability.
“HNRG has been at the cutting edge of sustainability for more than two decades,” said Larry Selzer, CEO of The Conservation Fund. “First they were an early leader in the certification of sustainable forestry and now in the emergence of a sustainability standard for agriculture. Along with the other pioneering members of the Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, they have created something that will fundamentally and profoundly improve the transparency of sustainability for consumers, investors and farmers.”
– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to the GAI News and Agtech Intel platforms. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.