Defining Sustainability as Measurable Improvement in the Environment: Lessons from a Supply Chain Program for Agriculture in the United States

Abstract

Around the world the private sector is increasingly committing to supporting sustainable agriculture through supply chain engagement. These sustainability efforts focus on one or more dimensions of economic, environmental or social concerns for agricultural producers and target goals to ensure adequate production, conserve natural resources and address global environmental challenges. Programs to establish industry standards of sustainability have been designed to address the most pressing local challenges for the producers, transparently document production practices, and provide requirements for adoption of alternative practices. Increasingly the question turns to whether these programs are resulting in environmental improvement. Programs that are designed specifically to achieve and verify measurable environmental impact are gaining acceptance but require re-thinking the design of sustainability programs to achieve that objective. Here we describe, and present lessons learned from, an example of this approach for commodity crop agriculture in the United States. Development of the approach is documented, with a focus on the scientific, technological and computational challenges of establishing accessible and meaningful metrics for assessing environmental change. This design can be adapted for other regions and agricultural systems where the key to improvement in environmental outcomes is productive co-development with all stakeholders.