The Macdoch Foundation seeks to address systemic challenges through a variety of interventions, including research in the areas of landscape regeneration, climate change solutions and rural and regional mental health and wellbeing. Farming for the Future (FftF) is one such research project.Farming for the Future (FftF) was initiated and seeded by the Macdoch Foundation in 2021 as a once-in-a-generation, world-leading research project undertaken in collaboration with Australian farmers and their trusted advisors. It seeks to build the business case for farmers to improve natural capital on productive landscapes, at scale. It aims to provide the data and tools to support a more financially prosperous, climate-resilient, and environmentally positive agriculture sector in Australia. What is the FftF Program’s core hypothesis?The key hypothesis of FftF is that agricultural producers can improve medium to long term farm productivity and profitability through managing natural capital as a factor of production. Why does this gap exist?The program views the reason these benefits have not yet been achieved as originating from the fact that natural capital has not been treated as a factor of production, it has rarely been measured, and it has almost never been explicitly incorporated into farm management on a broad scale. What is FFTF’s approach?FftF is focused on providing the evidence base, tools and resources for farmers to build more profitable and resilient businesses by actively managing their farms’ natural resources. It seeks to provide a mechanism, facilitated through partnership with farm advisory networks, which allows farmers to increase their awareness of the role of natural capital in farming systems and to move onto planning and implementation for integration of natural capital into their farm management.

Sue is passionately committed to helping develop solutions for impact investors, financial services providers and food and apparel brands to invest in natural capital in agricultural landscapes. She connects investors and companies with regenerative farmers and consultants and is developing ecological accounting and assurance services for stakeholder reporting. We support the Stipa Native Grasses Association in the delivery of an Action on the Ground project under the Carbon Farming Initiative to demonstrate low-cost, rapid storage of soil carbon as a result of management of grazing livestock and support the Soils for Life program headed by Major General Michael Jeffrey.With the current Head of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) Michael Croft, we run My Farm Shop (www.myfarmshop.com.au). My Farm Shop is a not for profit, social entrepreneurial initiative that provides ethically and sustainably produced meat to consumers and provides farmers with a mechanism to differentiate sustainable production methods from the commodity market. My Farm Shop also provides a living laboratory for the education of the future social entrepreneurs through its support of the Rural and Remote Enterprises (RARE) Program at Sydney University. A major focus of Sue's current research is development of an accounting system for natural capital in agriculture. Better understanding of returns from investment in natural capital will help to effect rapid and significant mitigation and adaptation to climate change and other threats to sustainability. This will help organisations who seek a market-based mechanism to influence a rapid and significant change to Australia’s sustainability status to identify and implement practical, significant improvements.

The Mulloon Institute is an active model of farming, forestry, grazing and food production that is environmentally regenerative, is socially and spiritually supportive and is financially sustainable and a place of learning aimed at equipping the leaders of future generations. My role was to identify and develop programs to meet The Mulloon Institute's purpose and develop an income stream to support its operations. I established and led the research program including establishing a memorandum of understanding with ANU. To set the strategic direction for Mi's research program, I recruited and convened a science advisory group comprised of leading Australian scientists and was successful in securing MI's involvement as a partner in two large carbon farming grants.

Panviva is a developer of business process guidance systems that improve staff productivity by improving adherence to company processes and procedures and by helping them to use corporate systems correctly. They aimed to grow their business by establishing an installed base of reference customers in Australia, the US, UK and SE Asia. I worked closely with the CEO and the executive to design and execute consultative sales campaigns that secured strategic sales and strong returns on investment for client organisations in the target segments of call centre operations and enterprise systems.

HP wished to establish a strong services portfolio to support its enterprise computing clients in Australia to maximise their return on investment in IT and maintain high systems reliability. I was responsible for strategic planning, design and execution of the local implementation of enterprise services solutions and was also responsible for sales of these to some of HP's target accounts.