Brazil’s Cerrado and Amazon landscapes are at the heart of global food and fiber supply chains and are globally critical for their environmental services. Transforming how they are managed is essential for a sustainable future – for climate, nature and people. The Landscape Accelerator Brazil – LAB is leading this transformation by uniting business, finance, policymakers, and producers to scale regenerative agriculture and land use. This year, the LAB’s journey – from the inaugural Cerrado Summit, to foundational research (check out Cerrado and Amazon assessment) and the LAB Action Plan, to dynamic pre-COP and COP30 events – has set the ambition for scaled investment and regenerative outcomes on the ground in the coming years.
LAB Action Plan: A Blueprint for Regeneration
Note Opportunity encompasses the transition of the Cerrado and Amazon biomes to regenerate landscapes
Source BCG analysis
The LAB Action Plan outlines how diverse stakeholders can work together to scale regenerative landscapes across two critical biomes in Brazil: the Cerrado and Amazon. It focuses on three pillars:
- Blended finance: Unlocking and aligning public and private capital to catalyze regenerative transitions.
- Metrics & MRV: Developing shared indicators and monitoring systems for transparency and measurable impact.
- Public policy: Creating enabling conditions through incentives, regulation, and integration with national climate and agricultural agendas.
Together, these pillars underpin the LAB ambition to mobilize USD $5 billion by 2030 to accelerate regenerative land-use models and strengthen resilience in these biomes, as part of a longer-term investment opportunity approaching USD $100 billion.
Pre-COP events: building the momentum
At the pre-COP events, the LAB has been an active platform for convening business leaders, government representatives, civil society, finance stakeholder, and producers to align around regenerative solutions. These dialogues helped shaping the agenda and direction on land-use priorities for the private sector, ensuring that Brazil’s leadership in sustainable land use is recognized and supported globally.
At the Sustainable Innovation Forum in Sao Paulo, WBCSD, BCG and CEBDS convened over 50 leaders from corporates, finance, MDBs, producers, and civil society to strategize on accelerating blended investment into regenerative landscapes. The roundtable identified two key LAB roles going forward:
- Macro scale: Support “matchmaking” between investment supply and demand, and advance key systemic drivers of the transition including key policies and digital innovation.
- Landscape scale: Codify, scale, and replicate successful collective action models, aggregate co-investment, and enhance farmer trust and participation.
Participants brainstormed actionable opportunities, such as creating a directory of funds, harmonizing eligibility criteria, and integrating MRV & finance unlocks to accelerate regenerative outcomes on the ground. The session underscored the importance of de-risking transitions for farmers and tailoring financial solutions to their needs.
Later the same day, WBCSD’s Executive Vice President Diane Holdorf represented our collective work in a multistakeholder panel alongside leaders from the International Finance Corporation, WBCSD member Louis Dreyfus Company, the Rwanda Green Fund and a local organic producer.
This working session in partnership with CEBDS and with participation from the Brazilian Ministries of Agriculture and Environment, the Central Bank, producer associations and other key technical partners showcased LAB’s progress in aligning metrics for regenerative landscapes and MRV guidance tailored to Brazil , highlighting the benefits and challenges of a vision for regenerative agriculture focused on impact instead of practices alone. Key opportunities to explore in 2026 include:
- Accelerating the Rural Environment Registry (CAR) validation – an important national registry that maps rural properties and their environmental obligations, providing the data needed to verify compliance with the Forest Code and guide conservation efforts – and improving data infrastructure.
- Setting “carrots and sticks” by identifying key metrics for unlocking public and private investment.
- Embedding aligned metrics in proof-of-concept projects.
- Tackling knowledge gaps through coordinated efforts with academia and institutional partners like Brazil’s leading agronomic research body Embrapa.
What COP30 meant for the regenerative landscapes agenda in Brazil?
Together, these engagements reinforced LAB’s role as a bridge between global priorities and local action, making regenerative agriculture scalable and investable.
At COP30, the Action Agenda on Regenerative Landscapes (AARL) underscored the global momentum for land restoration by announcing over $9 billion in private-sector commitments, spanning 210 million hectares and 12 million farmers since COP28. This signaled both the scale of opportunity and the urgency for country-led pathways to translate ambition into impact.
Brazil’s launch of RAIZ (Resilient Agriculture Investment for net-Zero land degradation) provides exactly that pathway. RAIZ focuses on mapping degraded landscapes, identifying investable restoration solutions, and structuring blended finance to mobilize capital at scale. It offers a practical route to convert degraded soils into productive, resilient land while advancing climate, biodiversity, and rural development goals.
The LAB plugs directly into this architecture as the implementation engine, showing how RAIZ and AARL commitments can materialize on the ground. As a place-based coalition set to promote coordinated technical and financial support in 2026, the LAB demonstrates how to turn global commitments and national strategies into investable, farmer-centered action.
Looking ahead: LAB’s path forward
At COP30, the LAB and its members and partners demonstrated the power of systemic collaboration to align local investment and action with global climate and biodiversity goals. By connecting people, policies, and investments, the LAB is making regenerative landscapes scalable and investable, turning ambition into action and setting a blueprint for the path ahead and for others to follow.
Learn more about our work on our website and reach out to Matt Inbusch (inbusch@wbcsd.org) to explore collaboration opportunities.