The COSA Measuring Sustainability Report Executive Summary

8/16/2019 The COSA Measuring Sustainability Report Executive Summary

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Committee on Sustainability Assessment2

THE COSA MEASURING SUSTAINABILITY REPORTCOFFEE AND COCOA IN 12 COUNTRIES

Executive Summary



Committee on Sustainability Assessment

COSAThe Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) is a neutral global consortium whose mission is toaccelerate sustainability in agriculture via partnerships and assessment tools that advance our understandingof social, economic, and environmental impacts. COSA advises and works together with important institutionsand world-leading companies to accelerate the use of sound metrics and the effective management ofsustainability efforts.






The Main Issues

In the past two decades, markets grew to accommodateno less than 435 “eco-labels” claiming some aspect ofsustainability. Some have ushered in new models forsustainable production, energy use, and trade. Yetno matter how thorough or rigorous a sustainabilitylabel is, sustainability is not synonymous with any oneparticular sustainability standard or label.

Products bearing the most visible sustainability labelssuch as Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, andUTZ Certied are widely recognized in the moredeveloped markets. Their presence is the result ofheightened consumer awareness and the leadershipof food companies who believe they need to integratemore sustainable practices into their supply chains.

The world’s largest food and beverage companies,such as Mars, Mondelēz, McDonalds, Unilever,PepsiCo, and Nestlé have made public commitmentsto such initiatives and now routinely buy and marketat least some certied or veried products.

All of the eco-labels and programs aim to promotesustainable development, yet their processes andtheir impacts differ signicantly. It may be diffi cultto discern the differences in part because even theword “impact” is used loosely in many reports toindicate what is basically an intervention for instance,

training or achieving a certication. Impact is simplydened as the “intended or unintended longer-term effects (positive and negative) that can beattributed to a specic intervention or investment.”In fact, the credible scientic data about the impactsor performance of most initiatives is limited (i.e.using good protocols, counterfactuals, statisticalsignicance). The data that have been collected areoften not easily comparable to other data on the

same topic because researchers tend to follow theirown individual denitions and inclinations.Sustainability is a dynamic process - not a staticpoint - especially in agriculture. To have any hope ofmanaging the process of agricultural sustainabilitywe must rst have practical ways to reliably measureand understand the key factors at a reasonable cost.

There is a clear need for science-based mechanismsto help understand which initiatives and interventionsimprove sustainability and which do not.

COSA and our ContributionThe Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA)is a neutral and non-prot global consortium with amission to accelerate sustainability in agriculture viathe advancement of transparent and science-basedassessments. Its objective is to provide practicalmeasurement tools and to help interpret reliable

data for rms, producers, and policymakers to bettermanage their efforts.

COSA employs solid and simple approaches that caninform and inuence the choices that are made ona daily basis. Our approaches are relatively low-costand immediately useful for strategic and commonsense decision-making. This is equally important forbusinesses, policy makers, and producers, as well asVoluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS).

“COSA” refers to both the collaborative grouping ofdozens of organizations and hundreds of contributingexperts and to the COSA system. The systemoffers multiple tools for gathering, comparing andsharing information, including SMART indicators,eld technologies, and implementation and analysismethodologies 1 . We have now worked in 12 countriesand collected nearly 18,000 farm and village-levelsurveys, and will substantially escalate this work.

The COSA System

Scientic MethodologyA proven scienticmethodology for

assessing the multi-dimensional aspects

of sustainability inagriculture

Local CapacityLocal capacity buildingin developing country

institutions so they canpartner in research

S.M.A.R.T. indicatorsCommonly dened

S.M.A.R.T. indicators forconsistent measurement

and credible data

ToolsA set of tools for

gathering, comparingand sharinginformation




Evaluation and Impact assessment are moving towardmore evidence-based protocols and the integrationof approaches that better capture the systemicaspects of sustainability. Of course, no single aspectof sustainability functions by itself or operates in avacuum. Understanding sustainability implies that wemust consider the intertwined economic, social, and

environmental aspects of the systems we study. Forexample, if the primary objective is increased yieldsand higher incomes then it is vital to also understandif those are achieved at a social cost such as childlabor or to the detriment of the local environment.We must also be able to compare ndings andmutually build on knowledge and this means movingaway from just having discrete individual researchprocedures and always varying indicators towardfostering the common use of some importantconsistent basic indicators.

COSA supports management decision-makingby providing a sound basis for comparison andevaluation of the effects of sustainability interventionsfor corporations, policy makers, and farmers. Multi-criteria analysis and a commitment to understandingresults in more than one dimension (i.e., more than

just economic results) help to more fully explainoutcomes so that interventions can be better informedand better executed. Although our work is applicableto any initiative, our considerable work with VSS formsa large part of our recent agenda and ndings.

Research Findings While the desire to compare initiatives to oneanother is common, we can learn more by comparinginitiatives to a valid control group over time andassessing the counterfactual (what happened inthe absence of an intervention). This helps to moreaccurately measure and understand the impacts ofVSS and other initiatives. The data in this report offerssome useful lessons in terms of relationships and

trends but, since a number of the projects have onlyone or two years of observations to date, these arestill insuffi cient to provide a thorough assessment ofimpacts.

Overall, looking at these data, one of the clearestunderstandings emerging from COSA’s work is that

the success of a sustainability intervention is oftendependent on the particular context. As the impactsof standards and initiatives unfold over time, moreconclusive evidence will continue to emerge from themulti-year comparisons with our Partners, reducingthe bias that can result from single-year views.With reliable data about their results, VSS or otherinitiatives have meaningful insights into opportunitiesfor improvement and perhaps a clearer incentive toimprove. Certication programs are certainly not the only routeto achieve sustainability. Nevertheless, in today’scomplex marketplace, the Voluntary SustainabilityStandards are the only codied and readily veriablemeans to communicate key aspects of sustainabilitysuch as production practices or trade conditions. Anumber of these VSS and their certications thereforeserve as unparalleled market mechanisms to convertthe desires and expectations of paying consumersand rms into real incentives at the farm level.However, they do not always do so and COSA strivesto measure how well these initiatives meet theirobjectives in multiple dimensions.

Decisions to help ensurelong-term sustainability canonly be as robust as theinformation upon which theyare based.

34 partnersand counting

12

countries15 milliondata points

17,800 surveys

COSA by the numbers




The VSS are often, though not always, associated withdiverse economic, social and environmental benets.

These benets are challenging to compare with thetotal costs of compliance since many of the benetscan be hard to monetize and the costs incurred areoften not direct costs. In many cases, little of theconsumer price premium reaches producers downsupply chains and so while sustainability initiativescan help reduce poverty and risks in important ways,they cannot consistently overcome the low economicvalue of many commodities. For this reason, it isimportant to look at the range of benets and costs(monetary or otherwise) when looking at the impactsof VSS or other initiatives.

Economic Dimension Data collected thus far reveals that, on balance, farmsthat are part of a sustainability initiative (typicallycertication) are experiencing better economicperformance compared to conventional anduncertied control farms. Many producers also tendto have a more positive perception of their economicsituation. Technical effi ciency was higher amongproducers who were part of an initiative for a range ofcountries, although there is ample room to improve.

Average net income per hectare, the single bestmeasure of farm-level economic viability, was higheracross many of the major certication initiativesobserved, but not by very large margins. Higherincome was typically driven by multiple factors: higheryields, lower costs of production, and occasionally,higher prices.

Caveats: Future outcomes will not necessarily offerthe same positive results, especially in terms ofincome. In most cases the cost of entry and training

for VSS is at least partly paid by external partnersthat range from development agencies and NGOs

to the buyers and traders of these commodities.However, it is not clear that continued funding willbe available as larger numbers of producers enter.A substantial number of the producers we observedwere already somewhat qualied at the start tomeet the requirements of a particular VSS. We havesometimes noted these distinctions from measuringcontrol groups in the samples and it is probable thatfewer such qualied producers will be available in thefuture. Further, the price premiums that buyers pay forthe major certications ranged widely and it could bethat the market signal that is sent by consumers (higherprice) is often not directly transmitted to producers. 2

Possible Consequences If consumers or externalpartners do not continue to fund the costs for newproducers to participate, some positive impactsseen here may diminish or even reverse course. Asthe more capable and closer-to-market producersbecome fully integrated into the VSS, there will beadditional costs for integrating the more distantand arguably less prepared producers. It is likelythat some of the lessons learned from outcomeswith more entrepreneurial producers may not fullyapply to a second wave of farmers, a group whoseeconomic and environmental sustainability may bemore challenging.

Social Dimension Farmers participating in initiatives promotingsustainability tend to have more training and morediverse training on a variety of topics such as goodagricultural practices and environmental stewardship.In contrast, certied farmers were slightly less likely to




utilize protective gear when applying agrochemicalsor prohibit their application by vulnerable persons.

We see some relationship between producereducation and yields but this is unlikely to beattributable to certication. In one country example,certied producers relied less on child labor in cacaothan conventional control producers but this areaof work needs to be deepened. The perceptionof producers in terms of their social situation,economic situation, and environmental situation wasconsistently higher for producers that were part ofan initiative in many of the countries sampled. Theevolution of this nding will be among the moreinteresting ones to track over time.

However, there were occasionally unexpected lowlevels of social benets. Food security was oftenbetter on certied farms, but not always, and it isworth noting that many certied producers facedsignicant challenges in meeting their food needseven when their income was higher than that ofconventional producers. The indicators of cropdiversication and resource use effi ciencies can shedmore light on this issue moving forward. We found that Producer Organizations offer a verydiverse range of services and, recognizing the valueof their good governance for both producers andthe community, COSA is rening a tool specicallyto better assess and understand ProducerOrganizations and their impacts. Within this process,we are evaluating the lessons of our experience andinitiating new collaborations with experts and relevantinstitutions to integrate best practices from aroundthe world.

Caveats: While the certied farmers we sampledclearly get much more training and we note the

valuable avoidance of some negative practices suchas child labor, they do not appear to be consistentlyor substantially different than control farmers whenmeasured for other indicators in the social dimension.

Possible Consequences: Key areas of work such asstrengthening producer organizations, gender-oriented inclusion (training, credit, land tenure),or preparing the next generation of farmers, areoften left untended and thus reduce the chancesof sustainable outcomes in the long term in manyproducer communities.

Environmental Dimension The environmental practices and conditions found onfarms that participate in sustainability initiatives tendto be somewhat better than those on conventionalfarms. They are more likely to use soil and waterconservation measures such as soil cover, contourplanting and terracing, drainage channels, and soilridges around plants. We found more training inenvironmental practices and in one example, a threeyear study linked the training efforts of the initiative

to the use of improved practices among Mexicanfarmers.

There is a positive relationship between productivityand environmental practices as well as betweenproductivity and the more general environmentalindex. However, this is not linear and varies betweenthe countries we sampled. We note considerabledifferences in renovation rates for productive treesbetween producers that are part of an initiative andthose that are not. The renewal rate of perennial farm




plantings is an important point to consider whenanalyzing the economic data especially. Producers

that are part of an initiative are also more likely tohave higher levels of biodiversity that can lead toincreased long-term viability.

Caveats: In a number of cases, we only see modestdifferences between those participating in initiativesand control groups. There may be several reasonsfor this that remain to be explored. These includethe time lags between certication and noticeableenvironmental impacts or where projects startedshortly before the surveys were conducted orthat there may be insuffi cient incentives to makesubstantial environmental investments. As with anyproject it is also diffi cult to assess the larger regionalor landscape-level impacts.

While better environmental stewardship in the form ofconservation practices may correlate with yield, this isnot always the case. Looking across several countrieswe see that the relationship between specic practicesand higher yields can vary considerably.

Possible Consequences: As the realities in the eld

become apparent, there is some evidence ofparticipation in training on good environmentalpractices and, if adopted, these practices may resultin greater impacts that can be measured in thefuture. If we fail to understand and communicatewhere there may be correlations betweenenvironmental practices and positive incentives suchas yield, well-being, or income it will be diffi cult tofoster and support good environmental practices.

The Path Forward It is not reasonable to expect that these initiatives –typically managed by modestly funded NGOs – will,in just a few years, single-handedly create thesustainable livelihoods, environment, and societiesthat billions of dollars of targeted aid fromgovernments and development agencies have failedto achieve over the last ve decades. As the metricsfor measuring sustainability advance, becomingstandardized and globally comparable, we already seeseveral of these initiatives engaging COSA informationto improve their ability to deliver the desired outcomes.

There are many paths to achieving sustainability,and for agricultural producers the fundamentalroutes must involve the optimization of productivity,the conservation of functional ecosystems, and thesupport of healthy social conditions. Measuringresults, in a cost-effective and practical manner,is critical for effectively achieving these goals. Thisdocument highlights some of the main ndings andlessons from COSA’s recent work to develop andapply practical measurement tools.

The results presented are substantive but by no

means complete and should therefore be consideredas a window into the potential of the data nowbeing gathered. Over time, this process will allowmore rigorous impact analysis and hopefully inspirethoughtful and informed dialogue that can enhancemore practical decision-making and help to make thefuture of agriculture a more sustainable one..




Major SupportersCOSA bene ts from diverse sources of support. Core funding and multi-year funding particularly from the SwissGovernment (SECO) and The Ford Foundation enable COSA to establish the capacity to innovate and advancethe eld. Other supporters have invested in COSA to test and to evolve sustainability measurement systems.




As an organization, COSA is functionallydesigned to collaborate and we

enthusiastically invite you to or participateat any level.

Learning together globally

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The COSA Measuring Sustainability Report Executive Summary

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