LandScale

Time is running out to solve the complex and far-reaching environmental and socio-economic challenges facing our planet. Issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and water depletion will affect us all. Yet no individual, community, business, or government can tackle them alone. We need to look beyond our own borders—be that of a farm, village or supply chain—to fully understand these challenges and implement effective actions to address them.

LandScale is a new initiative to help those who are ready to think big and collaborate between sectors or across an entire landscape to address these challenges and drive sustainability at scale. This initiative is co-led by the Rainforest Alliance, Verra, and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, in collaboration with a growing number of global partners.

As the saying goes, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.” At the heart of LandScale is the assessment framework, which provides a standardized approach for assessing and communicating sustainability status and trends across landscapes. This can help organizations involved in implementing jurisdictional or landscape approaches, as well as those sourcing commodities from or investing in rural landscapes, to:

• UNDERSTAND: The LandScale Assessment Framework and Guidelines includes indicators and performance metrics to measure progress towards critical landscape sustainability goals. It covers four pillars: ecosystems, human well-being, governance, and production.
• COMMUNICATE: The results of LandScale assessments can be verified and made available on the LandScale online platform to promote credible communication of landscape sustainability performance. This will help create incentives and rewards for improvements in landscape sustainability performance.
• ACT: LandScale provides trusted information that landscape actors can use to design more effective landscape management policies, programs, and investments. The results of LandScale assessments can also help commodity buyers and investors to make informed decisions for sustainable business.

LandScale is designed to provide the private sector, governments, and civil society with objective and credible information about the status of and trends in sustainability performance at landscape scale. It can be used to:

• IDENTIFY RISKS: LandScale assessments will highlight critical environmental, socio-economic, and governance issues in the landscape that may jeopardize livelihoods, investments, or business activities in the future. This can spur timely action to address these issues.
• SUPPORT COLLABORATIVE LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT: Participants in jurisdictional approaches or landscape initiatives can use LandScale to measure progress towards their own milestones and adapt management interventions to achieve maximum impact.
• COMMUNICATE LANDSCAPE SUSTAINABILITY: LandScale’s standardized approach and verification mechanism enables credible and consistent communication of landscape sustainability performance. This can help those participating in landscape or jurisdictional approaches to communicate the outcomes of these efforts to key stakeholders. Credible reporting on landscape sustainability can also reassure investors and buyers that activities in a particular landscape will be sustainable.

Early versions of the LandScale assessment framework are being tested in a number of different landscapes, which cover a range of different management structures, geographies, and commodities. The LandScale partners leading these pilots are providing critical input into the development process to ensure that it meets the needs of all key stakeholders.

Please visit the Verra website to read more about our pilots in Ghana and Costa Rica. If you would like more information on any of the pilot sites below, or are interested in becoming an early tester of LandScale, please contact us at piloting@landscale.org.

• LandScale At A Glance – English | Spanish
• LandScale Assessment Framework and Guidelines (Version 0.1) – English | Spanish | Bahasa
• Terms of Reference for LandScale – English
• Frequently Asked Questions – English | Spanish
• LandScale webinar recording, August 2019 – English | Spanish
• Webinar presentation, August 2019 – English | Spanish
• LandScale webinar recording, September 2019 – English | Spanish
• Webinar presentation, September 2019 – English | Spanish

Advisory Group

Jonas Dallinger – GIZ

Raphaele Deau – WWF Landscape Finance Lab

Stephen Donofrio – Supply Change

Ernest Dwamena – Touton

Kim Frankovich – Mars

Dr. Axel Hebel – European Investment Bank

Jan Kees Vis – Unilever

Dr. Simon Lord – Sime Darby Plantation

Daniel Spethman – Working Lands

Christopher Stewart – Olam

Ruth Thomas – Global Agribusiness Alliance

Greg Watson – Inter-American Development Bank