Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Kathy Means
Measuring progress on sustainability
On January 21, the Coordinating Council for the Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops (SISC) met in Washington, D.C. We assessed progress against our work and discussed future applications of the data that could be collected. SISC is a multi-stakeholder initiative to develop a system for measuring sustainable performance throughout the specialty crop supply chain. The Metrics Review Committees have worked quickly, and several metrics soon will be piloted to test their applicability in the real world.
We know that some businesses are tracking sustainability numbers (energy, water, crop inputs, etc.), and some buyers are asking for such numbers. We want to avoid having a plethora of measurement systems out there so that companies spend more time measuring than they do on their businesses. That’s why we see great value in having this one set of outcomes-based metrics to enable operators at any point along the supply chain to benchmark, compare, and communicate their own performance.
If you’re interested in working on these metrics or the pilots, you can sign up at the SISC Web site.