Brands need a new model of sustainability. Here’s how we can flip the script

Many major food and beverage brands are making significant commitments to sustainable and regenerative agriculture. In recent years, these brands have invested millions of dollars to promote their pledges to transition to sustainable farming practices, eliminate emissions, reduce water usage, and more.

Consumers and investors are listening: Sustainability-marketed products have grown more than 30% in the past five years. This category’s five-year compound annual growth rate is almost double that of conventionally marketed goods. And capital allocated to companies with strong sustainability performance has skyrocketed. In 2020 alone, assets under management for sustainable assets increased 96% over 2019.

But these big commitments are not translating into enough progress. Only 7% of companies are on track to achieve their net zero targets for scope 1 and 2 emissions, according to a 2022 Accenture report. And only 3% of large company executives globally say they are on track to meet their sustainability targets, according to Bain. Of all the corporations that have promised to convert millions of acres to sustainable, organic, or regenerative farming, few have reported material progress.

As our attention jumps from one announcement to the next, we are focused on the wrong thing. Splashy brand announcements are a distraction from the planetary crises that agriculture has a critical role in addressing — collapsing biodiversity, soil degradation, climate change, nutrient deficiency, and so much more.

Companies have let the work of selling sustainability take the place of actually solving sustainability challenges. The private sector needs a new model for sustainability, one that shifts the focus from selling to doing.

Here are three ways we can shift our approach.

1. Flip the script on sustainability initiatives.

   
   Today, brands are competing for who has the newest strategy, the biggest commitment, or the latest trademark.

   This works from a marketing perspective: audiences remember the splashy announcements. But what if, instead, the agricultural supply chain competed to achieve the greatest outcomes? Companies would be incentivized to adopt actionable frameworks to accelerate real farm-level change, instead of pushing out the next biggest promise. Press releases would be reporting progress, not making 20-year promises that may or may not be achievable

2. Standardize the measure of success.

   
   With our current model, companies are each using their own yardsticks to define sustainability performance. We are all working toward the same goals, but companies define success differently, meaning there is no ability to compare one outcome to the next.

   If we are to make any meaningful progress, we need a common language for sustainability. One yardstick — or standard — to collectively measure success across the range of sustainable outcomes that consumers, investors, and other stakeholders are demanding. Otherwise, we are duplicating efforts across the industry, wasting time, energy, and money reinventing the wheel — and pulling farmers in many directions — with each new initiative.

3. Show the receipts.

   
   Transforming the agricultural supply chain requires third-party verification. This is non-negotiable.

   There is a pervasive, deeply seated lack of trust across the business ecosystem — not only between consumers and brands but also between levels of the value chain. Third-party auditing creates trust through verifiable receipts. This enables the distribution of value across the business ecosystem, such as providing premiums to farmers and ranchers, licenses to operate, or preferred terms on contracts, to name a few.

Ultimately, a company branding itself to a new initiative is not going to change anything for global agriculture. By focusing on the greatest outcomes — rather than the most memorable press release — we can unlock the power of free market competition to drive planetary-scale change. Agreeing to a common language to measure success, and third-party auditing that success, will be critical to harnessing the full potential of the private sector.