Australia is looking to become a regional leader in natural capital investment. With Monash University establishing what it says is the country’s first dedicated Chair in the field, backed by a philanthropic gift from the David Brand Foundation.
Wood Central understands that the new senior research role — to be known as the David Brand Foundation Professor in Natural Capital Investment — will sit within the Monash-Fiji National University Pacific Action for Climate Transitions (PACT) research centre, with a mandate spanning sustainable forestry, environmental accounting, biodiversity, and carbon market policy.
Dr David Brand, CEO of Arborcrest Investments and founder of New Forests — which Wood Central has previously reported manages $10 billion in natural assets across 1.1 million hectares — said the new role will turn research into investment flows. “Realising the full value of natural capital to society is an essential precursor to scaling up nature-based solutions like sustainable forestry,” he said.
“The goal is not only to deliver competitive investment returns, but to provide capital to climate change adaptation and mitigation, nature conservation and restoration, and sustainable products and benefits, including food, timber, water security and economically resilient communities.”
It comes as the push to build credible natural capital investment frameworks intensifies across the Indo-Pacific, with carbon targets and binding obligations encouraging institutional investors to invest in forest and biodiversity assets at scale. Wood Central understands that the new Chair will operate across Monash campuses in Malaysia and Indonesia, where the pressure is sharpest and the research base thinnest.
Monash Business School Dean Professor Simon Wilkie said the field had reached a point where research had to start paying its way. “Realising natural capital as a mainstream asset class is essential to unlocking nature-based solutions like sustainable forestry, delivering long-term, risk-efficient returns while driving decarbonisation and a nature-positive future,” he said.
And whilst Wilkie pointed to the Chair’s regional significance, he was equally clear about why Monash was the right home. The Business School’s bench across asset pricing, environmental accounting, development economics and market design was not assembled overnight — it was the product of years of deliberate investment in exactly this kind of applied work.
PACT Director Professor Paul Dargusch said regional appetite for applied research was running well ahead of what existing institutions could deliver. “The David Brand Chair in Natural Capital Investment will be a valuable mechanism to strengthen capability, accelerate applied research, and shape long-term regional engagement in this field,” he said.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Sharon Pickering said Monash had spent years building capability in climate science, applied economics and sustainability. The Chair, she said, put that work to use across a campus network spanning Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, China and India.
Recruitment for the role opens immediately, with early work expected to focus on forestry investment frameworks, environmental accounting, and sustainable supply chain design across Asia-Pacific.
