Mission & Goals

Sustainable agriculture is the only way we can provide a planet of nine billion people with adequate food and water. The Food, Beverage & Agriculture Sector knows food supply and production practices and will continue to be essential in sustaining food resources. Together, the sector and its members are improving the environmental and social sustainability of global agricultural supply chains.

Scope

Food, Beverage & Agriculture was the first sector to form after The Sustainability Consortium’s launch in July of 2009. It is currently the largest sector. The Food, Beverage & Agriculture Sector makes up some of the most active and knowledgeable participants of The Sustainability Consortium, who are already leaders in product sustainability.

Research

Members, participants and staff have worked together to develop prototype baseline models and product category rules for orange juice, strawberry yogurt, and wheat cereal. We have now turned our focus to the Level 1 Sustainability Measurement and Reporting System (SMRS) and are developing the output for the Level 1 SMRS, or Category Sustainability Profiles (CSP), for five products: beef, coffee, cotton, strawberry yogurt and wheat cereal.

White Papers

Geospatial Climate Data
Ryan Z. Johnston; Marty D. Matlock, Ph.D., P.E., C.S.E.
University of Arkansas
The Sustainability Consortium
February 2011

Regional Corn Modeling at a High Resolution Scale: A Yield
Based Approach and Blue vs Green Water Assessment
Center for Agricultural and Rural Sustainability
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service
The Sustainability Consortium
February 2011

A Review of Water Scarcity Indices and Methodologies
Amber Brown; Marty D. Matlock, Ph.D., P.E., C.S.E.
University of Arkansas
The Sustainability Consortium
April 2011

Projects

Food, Beverage, and Agriculture Sustainability Measurement and Reporting Standard (FB&A SMRS)

PStandardized method to evaluate and report product life cycle information for food, beverage, and agriculture products. Prototype product families include:

• Breakfast Cereal
• Flavored Yogurt
• Fruit Juice

Biodiversity Metrics Development

Review of existing biodiversity and land-use metrics and evaluation of potential for use in Standards for Measurement and Reporting (SMRS) and as Sustainability Performance Drivers (SPD).  Identify gaps or research needs in metrics, driver, indicator development. Pursue avenues to fill those gaps via collaborations with researchers, NGO experts and corporate/retail leaders.

Participants

• Arizona State University
• BASF
• Bayer
• BSR
• Campbell’s
• Cargill
• Clorox
• Coca-Cola
• Dairy Management, Inc.
• Danisco
• Darden Restaurants
• EDF
• General Mills, Inc.
• Kellogg’s
• Kimberly-Clark
• Mars, Inc.
• MillerCoors
• Monsanto
• Novozymes
• NSF Inernational
• PE Americas
• PepsiCo, Inc.
• Royal Ahold
• Safeway, Inc.
• SCS
• Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops
• Stonyfield
• Syngenta
• Tetra Pak
• Tyson
• Unilever
• University of Arkansas
• Walmart
• WWF