Connecting sustainability performance to the global goals for coffee and cotton

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The need for common metrics
The solution
About the framework
Supporting sectoral alignment
Download project outputs

Introduction

About the project

Project title: The Delta Project: Bridging the Gap in Measuring Real-Time Sustainability Performance

Lead organisation: Better Cotton Initiative

Partners: Global Coffee Platform, International Coffee organisation, International Cotton Advisory Committee Expert Panel on Social, Environmental and Economic Performance of Cotton Production

Duration: February 2019 - June 2021

Contact: Eliane Augareils - eliane.augareils@bettercotton.org

The need for common metrics

There are many sustainability systems and initiatives that promote responsible and sustainable production practices with commodity sectors. However, there are limited mechanisms to allow for the comparison of results between these initiatives, nor guiding principles to ensure that their interventions or data align with the Sustainable Development Goals. This limits whole sectors from being able to report against their contribution to national and global sustainability and creates additional reporting burdens for producers and companies alike.

The solution

There are similarly no mechanisms within commodity sectors to allow for the comparison of results, no guiding principles to ensure that measured indicators align with the SDGs, and no methods for aggregating the performance of multiple companies within a sector to draw a more accurate picture of how a sector is contributing to national and global sustainability.

Finally, even as agricultural sustainability standards and initiatives become increasingly data driven, smallholder farmers—who are at the core of these efforts—lack consistent, timely access to the data that they are generating. For example, coffee and cotton farmers provide governments, researchers, and other stakeholders with farm-performance and socio-economic data, and yet the analyses that result from this information are rarely shared with the farmers.

About the framework

The framework features a common set of environmental, social, and economic indicators to measure sustainability across both of these commodity sectors. The number of indicators has been limited to ensure that the framework remains manageable for companies and governments. The project will also provide examples of good and bad practices; tools and information to facilitate the framework’s adoption; and with recommendations on how companies can communicate sustainability information to their customers. The framework will be piloted in South Africa and Vietnam in the coming months to test the suitability of its indicators and data collection protocols.

Supporting sectoral alignment

The Delta Project has the potential to reimagine the ways that sustainability performance is assessed and reported. By determining how well SDG targets are being met, the framework will enable better scrutiny of large-scale change over time. It will also improve the way that improvements are measured within commodity sectors, encouraging longer-term strategic thinking. Standardizing a framework and making it adaptable to a range of commodities will also foster the development of a common language for sustainability, and make it easier to collect and compare data. The availability of structured data will benefit all stakeholders, including farmers, service providers, retailers, governments, donors, NGOs, and academia.

Download project outputs

Delta Sustainability Indicators | Delta Framework

Delta Sustainability Indicators407.18 KB

Delta Sustainability Indicators - Descriptions and Methodologies698.91 KB

Sustainability Initiatives and Frameworks | Delta Framework

This desk research is an output from the Delta Framework, an ISEAL Innovations Fund supported project that is developing a cross-commodity framework for sustainability monitoring and reporting.

Sustainability Initiatives and Frameworks | Delta Framework10.8 MB

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