Sustainable Finance Live 2024 kicks off on 8th October at Events@No6 in London.
The conference will focus on new innovations and bring together experts to brainstorm and strategise on how to solve the challenges facing sustainability in the finance industry moving forward. This year’s theme will focus on natural capital value and its transaction journey.
In a series of interviews focusing on capital being allocated to nature and climate projects, Richard Peers, founder of ResponsibleRisk and moderator at Finextra’s Sustainable Finance Live event spoke to Tim Coates, co-founder of Oxbury Bank earlier this year with FinextraTV.
Oxbury Bank was established in 2021 to fill in a gap in the financial industry catering to the agri-food sector, working primarily with farmers in their supply chain.
In the discussion, Coates explained that the agri-food industry needed “dedicated, specialist support” and Oxbury bridged that gap by introducing a technology-enabled solution into the market.
He emphasised that focusing on nature and climate is crucial to the agricultural transition, and there are policy questions in the air as well post-Brexit, but there needs to be more focus on addressing climate resiliency, especially in the UK which one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.
Coates stated: “If we are not able to have a productive farmland environment that is operating in a healthy manner with respect to nature and climate, then there won’t be productive farming into the future.
“There is no tradeoff here between food security and nature, which sometimes is debated, instead we are saying that we are about building resiliency. We are about supporting farms transition to a new kind of production paradigm that not only secures their long-term productivity, but actually generates value for society and the economy at large through the restoration of nature and adapting to the climate catastrophe that we find ourselves in.”
Coates continued that the farming business model that Oxbury Bank operated under works holistically in the supply chain, in conversations of other players along with farmers, producers, and retailers, on how to invest in nature capital.
Oxbury Bank is deeply concerned with environmental impact, financial emissions, and is focused on categorising their lending to align with policy frameworks in place and to maintain sustainability standards where it is desperately needed, said Coates.
Register here for this year’s Sustainable Finance Live to keep updated on discussion topics, networking, and workshops that will be taking place during the event.