WORKING WITH THE INDUSTRY
The expertise and perspectives needed to best serve a sustainable Ag and Food sector
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a great deal of sustainability reporting is a slow, tedious, and manual process. A digital platform that can check, compare and manage sustainability data efficiently sounds like a winning solution, but how to make sure its approach is trustworthy, expert and practical?
As an independent, one stop-shop platform for sustainability managers across the food and agriculture sector, TRACT’s governance approach draws on detailed, practical experience from a range of experts currently working in the sector. A key element of the platform’s design is the use of independent Technical Working Groups and a Sustainability Forum. Together, they design, align and secure endorsement across the industry of the metrics and methodologies used by TRACT.
Designed for both suppliers and producers in the Ag and Food sector, the one-stop insights platform that TRACT provides will simplify sustainability oversight and reporting for its users, enabling a greater focus on impact delivery. It does this by aligning methodologies to measure sustainability performance - including collecting, calculating, assuring and sharing non-commercial data. Key to the process is the breadth and depth of its data, which includes a rich set of metrics covering all relevant KPIs, backed by robust processes for calculations and data integrity. And this is where the expertise and brainpower of those involved in the Technical Working Groups (TWGs) is utilised.
The TWGs comprise of subject matter experts from more than 15 organisations, representing suppliers, producers and retailers, all of whom are non-investors* in the platform. Their role is to work together to select the most viable methods and metrics.
The process explained
The first stage is for the TWG experts to design metrics and methodologies together. The wider Technical Working Groups review the proposed metrics and provide feedback, and then the Sustainability Forum, which consists of senior leaders from eight companies, advises endorses the proposed metrics. Once endorsed, the topic is built into the platform and it is tested on an ongoing basis by the users and technical experts.
“We’re not writing the standards. Our aim is not to create new indicators, but to strengthen existing ones. We don’t start with a blank page. We start with research, looking at all the existing benchmarks, indicators and language.” After collaboratively designing the metrics and methodologies, the buyer companies from the Sustainability Forum lend their practical expertise and eventually, everything is endorsed. Claudia continues: “We need these two levels of depth and perspective: it ends up being more efficient and more effective with two different groups to align on our methodologies and metrics – and it’s useful knowledge-sharing for everyone involved”
Topics tackled first in the Sustainability Framework
Working with experts, TRACT has designed a Sustainability Framework, which sets out the various sustainability topics that, collectively, are considered the most important for the food and agriculture industry. On the platform, each topic will have an aligned methodology and set of metrics that are robust, pragmatic and underpinned by traceability.
The teams are concentrating first on four critical sustainability topics: carbon emissions, deforestation, child protection and traceability. In 2024, they will expand into other topic areas such as land rights, forced labour, biodiversity and more.
It's important that the metrics and methodologies and TRACT’s approach to the topics remain relevant and up to date with current industry thinking, regulation and approaches. These don’t remain static, so the teams regularly review the aligned approach and any updates and changes are subject to the same governance procedures.
Third party non-profit involvement
Working alongside the businesses involved are experienced non-profits operating in the food and agriculture sector - such as Aim Progress, Verité and Global Forest Watch – who are consulted throughout the process to ensure the methods and metrics used are credible. Their oversight is especially important in helping TRACT develop a trustworthy and dependable service. Claudia says that working with Verité throughout the forced labour metric and methodology alignment process, for example, “has been incredibly insightful and illuminates the depth of the informality that measurements must address…their input drives us to accelerate sustainability performance reporting”.
The process of designing the methodologies and then aligning with the Forum as a sounding board – to endorse the methodologies – is rooted in pragmatism. Not only will users have the right level of detail, but it is designed to be practical so it can be used across the food and agriculture supply chains and, ultimately, enable more impactful sustainability performance across the industry.
*TRACT’s four investor companies are Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), Cargill, Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) and Olam.