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SAN FRANCISCO, CA – March 2, 2015 – Across fresh food supply chains, businesses are advancing environmental, social and economic values. Balancing production with continually improving conservation stewardship demands an aligned approach to measure and communicate on-farm sustainability in specialty crops (all fruits, nuts, and vegetables). The Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops (SISC) and The Sustainability Consortium® (TSC) are proud to announce a partnership that creates significant progress toward these goals.
TSC and SISC have agreed to work toward harmonization of on-farm performance metrics and collaborate together on implementation and innovation projects to encourage stewardship across specialty crop supply chains. This partnership will enable SISC’s on-farm metrics, developed through a multi-stakeholder process, to be utilized in reporting against some of TSC quantitative key performance indicators (KPI’s) on continuous improvement in specialty crops product categories. These KPI’s are part of TSC Category Sustainability Profile for the food and beverage sector.
“The partnership with The Sustainability Consortium is an extraordinary opportunity for both organizations to leverage their members and skills to implement the use of standardized metrics by growers to benchmark their use of critical natural resources.” said Larry Jacobs, Farmer and Coordinating Council Member of SISC.
Through its unprecedented collaboration among the nation’s most influential grower organizations, NGO’s and buyers of specialty crop products, SISC works to build a common suite of outcomes‐based on-farm metrics to enable operators at any point along the supply chain to benchmark, compare, and communicate performance in meeting sustainability goals.
This partnership with TSC will support harmonization of on-farm reporting throughout the food industry, and help supply chains, as well as individual operations, address continual improvement in both on-farm productivity and environmental quality.
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“Collaboration is a cornerstone of the work of The Sustainability Consortium,” said Sheila Bonini, CEO of TSC. “Our partnership with SISC will help advance environmental and social sustainability of specialty crop supply chains by creating harmonized tools and metrics that are based in science, informed by diverse stakeholders and focused on impact throughout the supply chain.”
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About The Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops
The Stewardship Index (SISC) is a coalition of producers, buyers, and public interest groups who are collaborating to develop and share metrics that all parties agree are the most important indicators of stewardship. SISC aims to advance both optimal production and strong environmental protection by offering a suite of science-driven metrics empowering producers to measure on-farm practices (i.e. water use, nitrogen use, etc.) accurately and consistently. Metric data give consumers, food buyers, and producers a common language for discussing the impact of farming practices – and the meaningful stewardship activities of U.S. farmers. For more information, visit http://www.stewardshipindex.org
About The Sustainability Consortium
The Sustainability Consortium® (TSC®) is a global non-profit organization with the mission to enable the consumer goods industry to deliver more sustainable products. TSC translates science into business practice, working collaboratively with member organizations to develop transparent tools, methodologies, and strategies for products and supply networks that address environmental, social and economic imperatives. TSC is comprised of more than 100 members, including NGOs, civil society organizations, scientific experts, academics and corporations from all corners of business. TSC is jointly administered by Arizona State University and the University of Arkansas, with additional operations at Wageningen UR in the Netherlands and Nanjing University in China. For more information visit www.sustainabilityconsortium.org.
For More Information:
The Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops
Alison Edwards
831-345-2676
[email protected]
The Sustainability Consortium
Erika Ferrin
[email protected]
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