New Zealand Rural Land Company (NZL) is an NZX-listed rural land investor. It owns a diversified portfolio of productive land across New Zealand and leases it to experienced primary-sector operators under long-term arrangements. This landlord model creates a particular climate challenge: many of the risks, emissions and opportunities associated with the portfolio sit across the relationship between landowner, asset manager and tenant.

The Lever Room has worked with NZL across successive reporting periods to prepare its climate-related disclosures and strengthen the evidence behind them. What began as a regulatory reporting requirement has developed into a broader programme connecting emissions, physical climate risk and investment decision-making.

For NZL’s 2025 climate statement, our work included developing its first full-scope greenhouse gas inventory covering Scopes 1, 2 and 3, addressing the complex treatment of tenant emissions within downstream leased assets, and preparing the supporting evidence and documentation required for assurance. We also worked with NZL to improve the underlying data and establish a clearer pathway for progressively strengthening Scope 3 measurement.

Alongside the inventory, we refreshed NZL’s physical climate risk analysis across its rural land portfolio. Rather than treating climate risk as a generic sector issue, the work considered how exposure differs by location, land use and asset characteristics. This created a more useful basis for identifying where climate hazards may affect long-term land productivity, asset resilience, tenant performance and future acquisition decisions.

We also assessed practical decarbonisation opportunities and their potential commercial implications. This included examining where emissions are concentrated, identifying possible interventions, and considering reduction potential alongside cost, payback, operational benefits and strategic value. The aim was not to produce a theoretical list of climate actions, but to help NZL distinguish between initiatives that are measurable, commercially realistic and capable of being influenced through its role as a landowner.