EditorialIn the Money section of the Sydney Morning Herald on 24 May, 2023, the following headline was posted: “Trust deficit: ethical fund raises greenwashing alarm”. The warning came from the head of Australia’s biggest ethical fund, John McMurdo. He stated that “A trust deficit is starting to emerge, which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. There is a lot of fake news and a lot of greenwashing, so it is hard for investors to know what to believe.” John McMurdo went on to say that “this has become a cancer where bad cells in the ecosystem run the risk of eroding the benefit of the good cells.” He said that much of the problem lies with the lack of black-and-white definitions as to what constitutes an ethical investment. This warning struck a chord with the IEA since the Institute has just launched its accreditation program designed to place guard rails or standards on what constitutes regenerative agriculture. Our ethics are clearly stated as are our professional standards (refer to www.ecoag.org.au/accreditation). We believe we have set the benchmarks for regenerative agriculture in Australia which will enable the Institute to assess the suitability of applicants to become consultants or educators in the name of regenerative agriculture. Professional accreditation is common in accountancy and engineering, but not in agriculture – until now. The Institute often writes its name as Ecological (Regenerative) Agriculture and does so to create a seamless bridge between the words ecological and regenerative. The word ecological has its equivalence in the term regenerative and vice versa. The world is talking about regenerative agriculture at this juncture, but should greenwashing continue unabated, as seems to be happening, then the fallback position is to utilise the name ecological which, as a scientific term, would be better able to withstand greenwashing.
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