Reducing Risk: Landscape Approaches to Sustainable Sourcing – Scoping Study

Private sector concerned with global challenges

Global challenges related to food security, poverty, climate change, and ecosystem degradation are of increasing concern to the private sector. While sustainability initiatives in agribusiness and the food industry have grown dramatically over the past two decades, much of this work has focused on improving the environmental and social performance of specific farms, forests, and post-harvest operations in corporate supply chains.

Broaden scope beyond farm

However, true sustainability often requires a broader focus that includes management beyond the level of individual production units and engagement of multiple stakeholders from the public, private, and civil society sectors. Companies are becoming involved in landscape approaches through standards and certification systems.

Why and how companies can pursue a landscape approach

This report shares initial outcomes of a comprehensive global scoping of integrated landscape approaches, exploring the rationales (why) and modes (how) companies use to pursue landscape approaches. The scoping allows us to compare across a range of attributes, including differences among commodity types, types of risks businesses face and opportunities sought, barriers to functionality and success, and critical enabling factors. This scoping report is the first product of the “Building the business case for integrated landscape management” research project, carried out on behalf of the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature (LPFN) initiative. It is complemented by three in-depth case studies and a synthesis report.