Asset manager SLM Partners has unveiled findings of a decade-long project project in Australia that illustrates the financial and environmental returns possible with regenerative agriculture.
The Garrawin carbon project launched in 2013 after SLM acquired two properties in Queensland totaling 80,000 hectares. The project is part of SLM’s first strategy, the SLM Australia Livestock Fund launched in 2012 with a focus on grass-fed beef cattle production.
“What’s quite unique about it is the time frame,” says SLM Partners head of impact Alessia Lenders. “We’ve owned this land for more than 10 years and can show what’s been happening.”
In other words, it’s a glimpse into the long-term benefits of regenerative land management—an area that’s still relatively new for many investors.
“It’s about showcasing what we’re doing and being as transparent as possible,” says Lenders. “It’s really important to set this transparency in motion so that once other [fund] managers start disclosing as much, [the data] starts to become useful and we can compare it.”
A holistic grazing approach
The Garrawin project is situated in the Mulga Lands in Australia, an area characterized by red, sandy soils, Mulga and Eucalyptus trees, and shrubs and grasses. Rainfall amounts in this region are “highly variable” from one year to the next.
At the time of SLM’s acquisition, the land was managed conventionally, without a holistic grazing approach, says Lenders. In the wider Mulga Lands region, around 94% of the land is grazed and many livestock operations “have had adverse impacts on the landscape through clearings and overgrazing,” notes the report.
For example, says Lenders, a very common practice in the area is to pull down the Mulga trees to use as cattle feed during droughts or periods of low rainfall. The downside of this practice is that it allows farmers to keep more cattle on their land than is appropriate during a drought, which leads to grazing pressure, land degradation, and soil erosion, among other things.
SLM employed a holistic planned grazing strategy for the Garrawin project, which uses grazing management techniques that mimic natural grazing patterns of wild herbivores. Animals are kept in herds and moved frequently and the land is given long recovery periods between grazing events.
“We want to make sure we don’t come back to graze that patch until it is fully recovered. We want to make sure we allow for the more nutritious species and the perennial grasses to grow back. The key is short grazing periods and long resting periods,” notes the report.
Carbon credits ‘critical during drought periods’
Groundcover—a critical component of soil health—increased after SLM implemented holistic planned grazing for the project, “with notable gains of up to 8% in years of higher rainfall.” SLM determined this using historical groundcover data from Australia based data analytics company CiboLabs to compare the land’s response to rainfall before and after the grazing strategy was implemented.
Additionally, perennial plant cover and distribution improved, surpassing baseline levels in 2021 following a 6-year drought, and cattle stocking rates increased: In 2024 the property was able to support a cattle herd of more than 3,000 animals raised on natural pasture.
SLM launched a carbon-focused project at Garrawin in 2014. Since that time, it has issued 631,723 Australian Carbon Credit Units, generating an average annual net income of more than AU$800,000, or just above $500,000.
“This revenue proved critical during drought periods,” notes the report.
In holistic grazing, herd numbers have to be adapted to the capacity the land has for them. Drought reduces this capacity, and when one struck in 2014, stock levels were reduced to zero at their lowest point, says SLM. Carbon credit sales made up some of that loss.
“As a new source of cash flows, the carbon project generated an uplift of over 33% in the asset’s valuation over a 25- year period,” according to the report.
‘Tightening our belts paid off’
Lenders says that other properties in the first SLM Australia Livestock Fund have similar narratives that include some difficult years brought on by drought.
Now that rainfall is back, these projects have become “really, really successful,” she says.
“We’ve seen that tightening our belt during the drought paid off, and that the land really responds well now to the rain, and we have lots of grass, which is enabling us to hold a lot of cattle on the properties.”
She notes that another carbon project that was part of the first fund exited in 2021 with a 16% gross internal rate of return.
As for the Garrawin project, Lenders says SLM will soon look to do an exit for it as the first livestock fund begins to wind down its investment period.
The firm’s assets under management (AUM) grew 24% to $755 million in 2024. As part of its impact report for that year, SLM reported 105,520 tCO₂e sequestered across its portfolio, which is roughly the same as taking 23,000 cars off the road for one year.
In 2025, SLM will focus on its Irish forestry portfolio, which is supported by the European Investment Bank and the European Commission’s LIFE program, and employs continuous cover forestry management to sequester carbon over decades.
SLM estimates this could generate carbon credits worth €8 million ($8.3 million) at today’s carbon price.
