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.

First LandScale Public Consultation: The first version (version 0.1) of the LandScale Assessment Framework and Guidelines is now open for public consultation until October 15, 2019.

We would like to invite anyone involved in jurisdictional or landscape approaches, or interested in addressing the far-reaching sustainability challenges we face, to participate in the first LandScale public consultation. As part of this first consultation, we are inviting your feedback on the first version of the LandScale Assessment Framework and Guidelines to ensure that it is practical, robust, and helps to drive improvements in landscape-scale sustainability. Please also share this information with your networks.

How to Participate

We offer two ways to participate in the public consultation, in order of preference:

1. Using Collaborase, an online platform designed to make it easier to provide feedback on documents. A brief video with instructions on how to navigate the platform is available here, and an infographic with basic instructions is available here.

2. Filling in this Review Template in Microsoft Word and sending it via email to consultation@landscale.org.

Translations

Español – La consulta pública se encuentra disponible en español aquí.

Bahasa coming soon.

Upcoming Webinars
We encourage you to sign up for one of our LandScale webinars. Click on a time option below to register and learn more:

• Thursday 22nd August | English 9:30-10:30am GMT or 12-1pm EST| Spanish 2pm – 3pm EST
• Tuesday 17th September | English 9:30-10:30am GMT or 12-1pm EST| Spanish 2pm – 3pm EST

Next Steps
At the end of the consultation process, LandScale will publish a summary of comments. The summary will provide a list of the names and affiliations of commenters, but it will treat each specific comment as anonymous.

Based on stakeholder feedback, version 0.2 of the document—including the draft verification mechanism, and data and reporting platform—is expected to be released in Quarter 2 of 2020 for a second round of public consultation. The first full version of LandScale will be ready for general use by the end of 2020.

Any questions?
If you have questions about the public consultation process or have any other concerns, please email consultation@landscale.org.

Thank you in advance for your feedback. Your contributions will help to improve the rigor and relevance of LandScale.

*Additional supporting materials on LandScale are available in the Resources section below.

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.

If you would like more information on 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
• LandScale Assessment Framework and Guidelines (Version 0.1)
• Terms of Reference for LandScale
• Frequently Asked Questions – English
  (Spanish FAQ coming soon)