Farm sustainability-linked loan assurance

AsureQuality provides independent auditing services for our banking partners, Westpac and BNZ, to support farmers reaching sustainability goals through reduced interest rates. Our Sustainability Assurance team provided technical expertise to help the banks develop the loan schemes, which meet Sustainable Agriculture Finance Initiative (SAFI) guidelines. By providing financial incentives, our farmers are rewarded for the work they are undertaking while improving the sustainability and resilience of our agricultural sector.

The Westpac Sustainable Farm Loan(external link) requirements are designed to be simple and accessible, and aligned with existing assurance programmes as much as possible, to avoid imposing unnecessary additional auditing requirements. The loan schemes provide financial incentives to encourage farmers to work towards more sustainable practices and develop climate change adaption plans to help them better manage the impact of adverse weather events and build resilience for the farm and the wider rural communities.

The BNZ Sustainability Linked-Loan(external link) ensures that farmers are meeting additional environmental, social and animal welfare goals through developing tailored KPIs with each farm which are audited by AsureQuality annually.

For more information, please contact the Sustainability Assurance team.