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Benchmarking sustainability – what have we learned so far

Back in 2020, Holbrook Landcare Network recognized that the model that has traditionally underpinned Landcare and environmental work on farm was changing – shifting from a funded grants and programs approach to a range of market-based approaches mostly based on carbon markets. We are now beginning to see the agricultural industry responding to ESG requirements in supply chains, funding institutions and markets and the rise of a myriad of mechanisms, methodologies and service providers. It would be safe to say there has been an explosion in this space in the last 3 years! The Carbon space is well established but we are seeing the biodiversity and natural capital space expand rapidly.

What does it mean for Landcare and our members and producers?

For Landcare, the funding model is changing and we are needing to decide what our role will be. HLN at the moment has defined this as:

• Being a provider of objective information on the topic
• Identifying and acting on the research needs, demos and trials that are needed to get producers on the path to CN30 (and other industry and government environmental targets)
• Helping to improve the adoptability of technology and innovations as well as emerging accreditation systems that contribute to CN30 and other industry and government environmental targets.
• Awareness raising, extension and facilitating ‘first step’ assessments for producers

Many of our producers benchmark their livestock performance and businesses already – introducing environmental benchmarking seemed a good fit. After investigating several possible methodologies with our core group of producers, it was decided that what farmers actually need is a first step rapid assessment ‘assets’ analysis to:

• Improve their environmental literacy and to understand what’s been asked of them
• Identifying basic natural capital assets to protect or improve – vegetation, habitat, significant species, waterways, wetlands, natural resource management practices and understand the potential opportunity

What the producers wanted

• Need to understand natural assets in terms of the management units they work with – paddock scale assessment
• Landcare needs to help do it – self assessment is just not an option due to time and knowledge constraints

What we learned

• Probably no such thing as rapid assessment! It is easy to get caught up in the complexity and overthinking it– has to come back to the basics
• The markets for natural capital are only just emerging – it’s a very young industry and the rewards are not there yet. This makes it hard to explain why producers should benchmark at the moment, let alone decide what methodology to use to do it.
• Methane emissions reduction is the producers biggest challenge – need to look for the wins in reducing emissions from energy, fuel and inputs on-farm (scope 1 & 2), and being the most efficient you can be

Where we are going

• Everyone agrees we need to be ready for this new world and the changing roles and so HLN has employed a dedicated staff member to run projects and assist members to understand this dynamic field.
• As producers begin to look at their natural asset rapid assessments, we will get some good feedback on what is useful and what is not
• We are quickly being ‘overtaken by events’ with new tools and service providers emerging every day, and we are actively looking at all the opportunities (e.g. Farming for the Future, MLA Enviro credentials program).
• What’s maybe missing now is the management pathways to achieve improvement associated with those assets and get real improvement in the measures – that’s what we are exploring next and where Landcare has the track record.
• Using the benchmarking to liaise with SAI (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform Australia) and other supply chain members to understand what the reality of carbon and natural capital potential is on real farms
• Working on how to upscale to a regional assessment and accounting which would provide farmers with locally relevant goals for their own farms and for organisations like ours, the ability to measure our impact across the region.

HLN’s Emma Smith and local landholder looking at natural capital in the paddock

Holbrook Landcare and landholders Steven and Cindy Scott hosted representatives from the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform Australia to look at the reality of on-farm sustainability and natural capital benchmarking.