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3 The role of policies and business practices in incentivising sustainable land use
After reviewing the challenges remaining to achieve sustainable land use in the previous chapter, this chapter explores the policies and business practices that could overcome these challenges. First, the need for broader policy coherence is reviewed. It is followed by an overview of the role played by various policies and business practices with high potential impacts on land use sustainability with a focus on the following policy instruments: (1) regulations, (2) taxes, fees, subsidies (including payments for ecosystem services) and trading schemes, (3) large-scale land acquisitions, (4) due diligence for responsible investment in agriculture, and (5) voluntary certification schemes.
The role of a coherent long-term vision and coordination for successful land-use policies and business practices This section presents some key elements that are of the upmost importance in the design of policies that will overcome the challenges towards more sustainable land use.
Long-term vision Policies with long-term vision are needed. For instance, given the time needed by most urban land-use policies for their long-run effects to kick in, governments need to show long-term commitments to implemented policies (OECD, 2018[49]).
Vertical coordination between international, national and sub-national sector institutions There is also a need for vertical coordination between international, national and sub-national sector institutions for coherence and policy alignment (Verburg et al., 2019[50]; Brack and Wolosin, 2018[51]). Many natural resources require transboundary management, thus many land-related issues are best solved internationally (OECD, 2020[30]). International collaboration and especially between producer and consumer- country governments is key in addressing embodied deforestation 9 and taking trade measures designed to control global trade in commercial agricultural products, such as soy, palm oil, beef and cocoa (Brack and Wolosin, 2018[51]).
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Embodied deforestation is deforestation driven by agricultural commodity.
