Category: Mahi Pono

January 19, 2021 General Ag News and Notes, Mahi Pono, PSP Investments, Sustainable Agriculture Post a Comment

Can we finally standardize ESG standards?

GreenBiz
By Tim Mohin

Most GreenBiz readers are well aware of the complex sustainability reporting landscape. It seems like every year new reporting standards or frameworks are added to the overstuffed workload of the corporate sustainability professional.

As the former chief executive of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), I had a role in the ongoing movement to “standardize the standards” that companies use to report their sustainability results. I also worked on the corporate side (Intel, Apple and AMD) and have a deep appreciation of the work that goes into these reports.

Over the years, there has been more talk than action on reducing confusion and burden in the reporting space. To be fair, some of the burden is self-inflicted by companies that insist on publishing 100-plus page sustainability reports.

As we enter 2021, there are strong signals of meaningful change in the sustainability reporting world. Three main trends are emerging:

Mandatory disclosure: Policymakers are increasingly requiring ESG disclosure around the world. For example, the European Union (EU) will tighten its “Non-Financial Reporting Directive” in 2021, which requires environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure from companies with more than 500 employees doing business in the EU. And it’s likely that the incoming U.S. administration will introduce new ESG mandates as well.
Investor demand: There were record inflows to ESG investment funds in 2020 and the total tops $40 trillion — larger than the entire U.S. economy. Major asset managers such as BlackRock are using their ownership stake to pressure companies to improve their ESG disclosures.
Consolidated ESG standards: Recently, four leading ESG standards organizations — GRI, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB); CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project); the Carbon Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB); and the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) — declared their intent to collaborate. While this is a welcome signal, all of this work could be rendered moot by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation’s proposal to develop ESG standards. One hundred twenty countries use the IFRS Standards as the foundation for company financial disclosure, making it more than likely that these countries will endorse and require companies to use the new ESG standards.
The IFRS Foundation received more than 500 comment letters on its sustainability standards proposal with many key stakeholders in support. Given the momentum, the IFRS Foundation seems well-positioned to accomplish the elusive goal of a single global ESG standard

I have stated publicly and will reiterate here that I strongly support the IFRS action. A globally accepted ESG standard will improve the quality and comparability of disclosure, unlocking investment and trade that will improve, rather than ignore, the sustainability needs of society.

But there are several key challenges to address:

1. Materiality: The mission of the IFRS Foundation is “to develop standards that bring transparency, accountability and efficiency to financial markets around the world.” The concerns of financial markets are a subset of the broader concerns of sustainability. The IFRS Foundation must adopt a broader view to create transparency for sustainability issues that may not yet be financially material to companies or investors but are very important from a sustainability lens. Many companies already report on ESG matters beyond the scope of financial materiality and, as we saw in the pandemic, the definition of materiality is fluid and dynamic. It’s crucial that the IFRS articulates a strategy to straddle the boundary of “dual materiality,” enabling transparency on issues important for financial reasons and important to people and the planet.

2. Comparability: Many have criticized the lack of comparability in sustainability disclosures. Sustainability, unlike financial matters, includes a vast array of disparate issues that are not easily compared. An example is reporting on gender diversity vs. greenhouse gas emissions: Both are well within the scope of sustainability reporting, but obviously can be neither compared nor offset. As such factors cannot be reasonably merged into a sustainability score, they must be compared within the boundaries of the topic. The IFRS should emphasize the inherent lack of comparability between disparate ESG issues.

To enhance ESG comparability, the IFRS should consider the concepts in the International Business Council/World Economic Forum report: “Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism: Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation.” It outlines a series of universal metrics drawn from existing ESG standards. Setting aside the selection of the metrics, universally required disclosures will provide greater consistency of reporting across sectors and thus increase the quality and comparability of reporting.

3. Capabilities: The IFRS’s competency and credibility in the development of globally accepted financial disclosure standards makes them a natural hub for this work. But, because they have little experience with ESG issues, they will need to hire staff with sustainability credentials. And as they develop the standards, the IFRS must engage recognized experts in each respective topic that represent all relevant sectors, geographies and stakeholders. Blending sustainability expertise with the IFRS core competencies will not be easy, but is essential for the success of this proposal.

4. Technology: The sad fact is that the tools for gathering, auditing and reporting sustainability information are poor. The IFRS should incorporate the latest reporting technology into its sustainability standards. Information technology will not only reduce the burden of reporting, it will make it more actionable. Technology also will improve the quality of reporting, thus making it more reliable for investors and stakeholders and thus more effective in driving sustainability benefits.

After 35 years working in this field, it’s rewarding to see the rapid maturation of the sustainability movement. By taking on ESG standards, the IFRS Foundation is forging a path toward a global common language for sustainability. It is also confirming that sustainability has moved into the mainstream of global commerce. In essence, this signals the alignment of capitalism with the needs of people and our planet — and not a moment too soon.

December 31, 2020 Employment/Jobs, General Ag News and Notes, Hawaii Agriculture Jobs, Mahi Pono, PSP Investments Post a Comment

Mahi Pono Promotes Shan Tsutsui to Chief Operating Officer

MauiNow –

Mahi Pono LLC has announced the promotion of Maui’s Shan Tsutsui to chief operating officer. Tsutsui succeeds Tim O’Laughlin who will be relocating to California to focus on new initiatives for both Mahi Pono and Pomona Farming.

In his new role, Tsutsui will be responsible for all day-to-day operations for the Maui-based farming company which includes management operations, business strategy, community leadership, government relations and sales and distribution.

Tsutsui joined Mahi Pono in Jan. 2018 as its senior vice president of operations. Prior joining the company, Tsutsui served as Lieutenant Governor for Hawaiʻi, a State Senator representing Maui, business owner and financial advisor.

Mahi Pono is a farming company that owns and operates approximately 41,000 acres of agricultural land in Central Maui. It was created in 2018 in a joint venture between Pomona Farming LLC, a California-based agricultural group, and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), one of Canada’s largest pension investment managers.

Executives have expressed a commitment to sustainable agriculture, growing food for local consumption and providing agricultural employment in the community.

October 12, 2020 Mahi Pono, PSP Investments Post a Comment

Mahi Pono to host festival with sales of first fall harvest – All pumpkin sale proceeds to benefit Imua Family Services

The Maui News

Mahi Pono will celebrate its first fall harvest with a drive-thru festival and sales of farm-fresh produce, the company announced.

The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 24 at the Yokouchi Family Estate in Wailuku, at the entrance from the lower gate on Koele Street.

“The past seven months have been an extremely challenging time for our community, especially the keiki, and we wanted to create a fun activity for families to participate in fall traditions like picking out a pumpkin to carve and trick-or-treating,” Shan Tsutsui, senior vice president of operations for Mahi Pono, said in a news release. “We also wanted to make this event a benefit for Imua Family Services in recognition of the outstanding work they continue to do each and every day.”

The drive-thru festival will feature the following stops:

• Station 1: Drive-thru trick-or-treat stations. Keiki are encouraged to come dressed in costume and will be able to receive candy directly from their vehicle.

• Station 2: Pickup of preordered pumpkins to take home and carve for Halloween. The first 200 people who purchase pumpkins will receive a free carving kit. Pumpkins will cost $10 with net proceeds benefiting Imua Family Services.

• Station 3: Pickup of preordered product boxes featuring farm-fresh produce. Additional products available at this station will include Maui Cattle Company’s 5-pound ground beef, 5-pound papaya box, potato chips and farm-sourced honey.

Participants are encouraged to order pumpkins, produce, beef and other products online at PulehunuiFarmMarket.com. A limited supply of these items will also be available for purchase at the event.

Net proceeds from all pumpkin sales will benefit Imua Family Services and its community-based program that assists keiki with overcoming developmental learning challenges.

“In difficult times like this when businesses and nonprofits join together, we create a symbiotic relationship that enhances community and cultivates stronger interconnectedness,” said Dean Wong, executive director for Imua Family Services.

For more information on Mahi Pono’s Fall Harvest, pricing and to preorder, visit PulehunuiFarmMarket.com.

October 7, 2020 Mahi Pono, PSP Investments, Tea Post a Comment

What’s Brewing? – Shaka Mamaki Maui Tea

World Tea News
By Aaron Kiel

Shaka Tea Expands Supply Chain to Maui

Shaka Tea – the first line of bottled iced teas on the market brewed with sustainably-grown, Hawaiian mamaki leaves – announced a supply chain expansion to the island of Maui with Mahi Pono, a Maui-based farming company, as an anchor partner. Selling their teas across the islands, the United States and Japan, Shaka Tea is committed to sustainable agriculture and economic abundance by connecting local supply chain to off-island demand, via the burgeoning mamaki industry.

“We are excited to expand our supply chain to Maui, launching with our partners at Mahi Pono, who will be planting mamaki seedlings this year with the goal to see a first harvest in mid 2021,” shared Bella Hughes, co-founder and president of Shaka Tea. “We believe in a resilient, agricultural future for Hawai’i that complements high-value and lightweight export crops, such as mamaki, to be grown alongside food crops for local use. “We appreciate Mahi Pono’s commitment to a vibrant, sustainable future rooted in community.”

Founded in 2016 by O’ahu born Bella Hughes and her husband Harrison Rice, Shaka Tea is an award-winning herbal tea company and the first line of Hawai’i-grown, RTD iced teas on the market brewed with mamaki, an ancient, adaptogenic superleaf that’s only found one place in the world: the Hawaiian archipelago. The company’s supply chain helps restore native ecosystem habitat through the planting of mamaki, which is the host plant for Hawai’i’s native and endangered pollinator butterfly, the Kamehameha Butterfly. Presently, Shaka Tea works with 16 small farms on Hawai’i Island who all handharvest their mamaki, which is then dried and processed at the company’s Hilo HQ.

“Within the next few months, Mahi Pono will start test trials of mamaki and we are very hopeful that it will thrive on the lands we steward in Central Maui,” said Shan Tstusui, Mahi Pono’s senior vice president of operations. “The initial mamaki crops will be grown in a polycrop style in our Chef’s Corner row crop project alongside other non-GMO crops including kale, sweet corn and green beans. We hope this will encourage other local farmers across the state to look at incorporating native and endemic plants, like mamaki, alongside their various food crops.”

By the end of 2020, Shaka Tea will have given away 25,000 mamaki seedlings on Hawai’i Island to get small farmers started and looks forward to giving away 5,000 mamaki seedlings to help small, independent Maui farmers who are part of the Ag Park get started in 2021.

To learn more, visit ShakaTea.com.

September 16, 2019 Farm Land for Sale, General Ag News and Notes, Mahi Pono, PSP Investments Post a Comment

Mahi Pono Appoints Tsutsui as Senior VP of Operations

MAUI NOW

Former Hawai‘i Lieutenant Governor Shan Tsutsui will join Mahi Pono, LLC, as its Senior Vice President of Operations and will lead the farming venture on Maui.

“Throughout his years of service, Shan has been a strong advocate and leader in supporting and promoting local food production and sustainable agriculture in Hawai‘i,” said Ann Chin, Mahi Pono president. “As a Maui native, he is sensitive to the needs of the community and embodies our commitment to being responsible stewards of the land and a catalyst for growth.”

As Senior Vice President of Operations, Tsutsui’s responsibilities will include business strategy, management operations, community leadership, and government relations.

“Mahi Pono’s farming venture represents a significant step forward in advancing agricultural opportunities on Maui,” said Tsutsui. “It is an honor to be part of this initiative and be able to continue working toward strengthening agricultural sustainability in Hawai‘i, so that we can make a lasting impact on our keiki (children).”

On Dec. 10, Mahi Pono announced the purchase of approximately 41,000 acres of former Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company (HC&S) lands on the island of Maui from Alexander & Baldwin. Mahi Pono is planning a full range of agricultural operations and related uses. There are no plans to convert any of the lands to non-agricultural purposes. Mahi Pono’s plans help ensure the continued use of the former HC&S lands for agriculture, the preservation of green, open space in Central Maui, and a consistent and long-term source of revenue for the local economy.

“We are committed to becoming a positive contributor to the local community. In the coming months, I look forward to working closely with the Maui community to discuss the best ways to support and strengthen local agriculture,” added Tsutsui.

Tsutsui joins Mahi Pono from Strategies 360, a strategic positioning firm, where he will continue to serve as managing partner.

During his terms as the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Hawai‘i, he created and oversaw various programs and initiatives that supported and promoted education, sustainability and sports, including the Resource for Enrichment, Athletics, Culture and Health (R.E.A.C.H.) initiative, ‘Aina Pono Hawai‘i State Farm to School Initiative, Sports Development Initiative, among other programs. Previously, Tsutsui served as a Hawai‘i State Senator and became the first Senate President selected from Maui. He is a former small business owner and financial advisor.

Tsutsui graduated from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics, and is a graduate of Maui High School. He resides on Maui with his wife Lyndelle and their three daughters.

July 22, 2019 Mahi Pono, PSP Investments Post a Comment

Trinitas Partners Brings its Water Hammer to Maui

The Valley Citizen
By Eric Caine

Like any journalist in these days of escalating water prices amid growing scarcity, Deborah Rybak maintains a keen interest in agriculture. So late last December, when she learned 56,000 acres of farmland had changed hands on the island of Maui, her reporter’s radar went on full alert. Rybak writes for Maui Time, the island’s leading news journal.

The selling price alone—$262 million—was enough to pique her interest. Anyone with that kind of money would automatically have plenty of clout and would know, as Rybak knows, that Big Ag and water always intersect at nodes of political power.

She got even more intrigued when she tried learning about the buyers, who called themselves “Mahi Pono.” The loose translation is “to grow responsibly or ethically.” Early on, even the man who facilitated the sale couldn’t tell her much about the buyers. That bothered her, because the middleman was former Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, Shan Tsutsui.

Even though he’d worked on the sale for six months, Tsutsui said all he knew was the buyer was named Pomona Farming. He couldn’t tell Rybak who the principals were.

By now Rybak was on full alert and it didn’t take her long to learn that Mahi Pono was only about a month old when it bought Alexander and Baldwin’s 56,000 acres. At 21 months, Pomona Farming was older, but its principal owners, Ryan Paton, Kirk Hoiberg and William Hooper, had been buying farmland for a least a decade. They were known to people who follow agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley as Trinitas Partners.

Trinitas came to the small town of Oakdale in 2008 with much of the same fanfare as they’ve generated with their arrival in Maui. Though the three Bay Area partners sold themselves as inspired by scripture and dedicated to enlightened farming practices, it didn’t help their case when most of the acreage Trinitas bought turned out to be former pasture land that was dependent on groundwater, especially after Trinitas planted water-guzzling almonds.

Trinitas had surreptitiously bought up the pasture land at bargain prices, then immediately increased its value by converting it to almond orchards, which were annexed into the Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) in 2013. Even after the annexation, Trinitas had only second tier water rights, and was thus primarily dependent on groundwater. Nonetheless, the land appreciated in value tremendously.

Trinitas took more hits to its reputation when it settled a couple of lawsuits brought by landowners who felt the Bay Area investors had misrepresented their intentions while buying out local farmers and cattle ranchers.

Other local growers who had waited years to be annexed into the district were incensed that Trinitas had skipped to the head of the line. They accused the investment group of favoring speculation over farming and predicted Trinitas would abandon the region when the price was right.

That prediction may or may not have come true recently, when Trinitas sold shares of its Oakdale properties to a Canadian investment firm. Some observers noted that the new buyer hasn’t paid off the annexation fees Trinitas financed at three percent, as required by the original contract with OID.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the new buyer is actually just another arm of the Trinitas empire, which, as Deborah Rybak has learned, features a bewildering array of LLCs and branches. In that case, Trinitas would have sold to itself, or to “Pomona Farming,” as it says in a letter of explanation to OID.

Whatever the case, the real concern for people in Maui, and anywhere else Big Ag gets involved in big sales, is water. More and more exchanges of farmland these days are about acquiring water rights and more and more people are wakening to the reality that whoever controls water rights controls the political process, and vice-versa. It’s a double feedback loop where water rights lead to power and power confers water rights.

And as of June 26, it appeared Trinitas, aka Pomona Farming, aka “Mahi Pono,” had reached an impasse with Maui County’s Board of Water Supply over water rights to its new land holdings. Problems between the board and Mahi Pono date back to ongoing controversies with Alexander and Baldwin (A&B), the original landowners.

The key question for members of the water board, and affected residents in general, is whether Mahi Pono will allow enough water to pass through its farming operation to serve “Upcountry” Maui. Norman Franco, a member on the Board of Water Supply said,

“I think people are tired of getting held hostage by A&B and now Mahi Pono,” when commenting on the impasse.

Franco was incensed because Mahi Pono has gone incommunicado despite requests from the Board of Water Supply and local media to explain its plans for utilizing the A&B water rights which came with the property. The water rights have been subject to controversy, mostly because they’ve been on a permanent “temporary” status which many interested parties believe gives the landowner too much control over the water without enough responsibility to maintain infrastructure for delivery. The water system is managed by East Maui Irrigation, which was part of the A&B buyout.

Mahi Pono went silent after a bill to maintain the status quo on its water rights failed.

Given what seems like inordinate power over water deliveries, Mahi Pono of late seems to be justifying Deborah Rybak’s early concerns about the buyout. Just a few days ago, there were reports that OID water attorney Tim O’Laughlin had become involved in the Mahi Pono controversy. Many Oakdale farmers believe O’Laughlin was a major player in giving Trinitas/Pomona Farming/Mahi Pono what they believe was sweetheart deal when Trinitas was annexed into the district.

At bottom, the Maui land purchase may in fact be a water purchase. As Mark Arax has documented so clearly in The Dreamt Land, Big Ag is also Big Water, and isn’t averse to buying and selling water for profit. The lesson is that if you are in or near a farming community, water is a commodity, it’s for sale, and a buyer is coming soon to a farm near