THE CHALLENGE
NSW agriculture’s future hinges on environmental sustainability, natural capital accounting, and engagement in environmental markets amid a rising demand for ‘net zero’ and ‘nature positive’ production. Carbon and biodiversity credits are gaining traction as offsets, with the NSW government eyeing private sector finance to complement public funding for environmental initiatives. Despite the potential of natural capital accounting to aid farmers, navigating the complex landscape poses challenges.
To address these challenges, Local Land Services (LLS) partnered with The Strategy Group on a project to articulate, refine, and evaluate the logic and preliminary feasibility of a proposed natural capital service catalogue.
As was commented, it was a very productive and successful workshop. We achieved my primary aim of getting LLS Board people on board and engaged. And we’ve had positive feedback since that our key Board members are feeling confident and reassured that we are on the right track, and that “the project was progressed significantly in just a few hours”. Thank you Poppy and Pierre for really clear materials and instructions and facilitation yesterday!
– Claire Parkes, Business Partner – Natural Capital Services Statewide Programs
THE APPROACH
Using a customer-centric approach to co-create and map proposed natural capital services, with the aim to support and guide farmers and land managers in their decision-making processes related to natural capital management and participation in environmental markets.
The project comprised of a preparatory workshop and co-design service mapping workshop with key LLS personnel from the Natural Capital function and regional LLS board, and ultimately aimed to:
- Create a typical landowner profile to guide the service maps
- Map out high-level customer journeys & service attributes for the proposed services
- Capture different perspectives on LLS proposed services from around the state and from different areas of expertise and experience
- Identify key customer needs/issues & opportunities/risks for LLS
- Identify other natural capital services that could be considered
OUTCOMES
Visualisation of proposed LLS natural capital services with key opportunities and recommendations to support their development.
The outcomes of the co-design workshop culminated in a final report that included key findings and recommendations to inform the development of the proposed services. The outcomes included:
- Visualised service maps creating alignment between LLS stakeholders around what the catalogue services will look like
- Identification of other potential natural capital services which will need to be further explored by LLS
- Confidence amongst LLS Board members that LLS is on the right track
- Clarity on the path forward to iterate on and refine these services
