Responsible investment? How ESG standards legitimise Canadian farmland as an alternative asset class

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards aim to differentiate investments as socially and ecologically responsible. Increasingly, ESG standards have been adopted by farmland investment managers. We explore how institutional and private investors in Canadian farmland are developing and implementing ESG standards in their portfolios. Through content analysis of policies, reports and other materials produced by six Canadian farmland investment firms, we find that firms mobilise ESG claims using ‘in-house’ standards of care, internationally endorsed ‘principles of responsible investment’ and, in some cases, third-party certification. Environmental measures feature most prominently in the ESG discourses of farmland investors as each firm seeks to define certain practices as sustainable and implement monitoring and verification processes. Though social commitments are less prominent, firms mobilise claims of contributing to the agricultural sector by providing capital, facilitating farm succession and supporting growth-oriented farmers. ESG claims serve to construct an ‘agricultural imaginary’ that paints the picture of a financialised and environmentally benign sector but leaves little space for meaningful commitments to local people and places. We conclude that the development of ESG commitments is used by fund managers to legitimise farmland investment, furthering the financialisation of Canadian agriculture and raising questions of farmer autonomy and control.