再生农业：BSI标准研究报告

Regenerative Agriculture Discovery Research Report

Executive Summary

Regenerative agriculture is gaining traction as a solution to environmental and sustainability challenges, offering benefits like carbon sequestration, biodiversity improvement, and soil health enhancement. However, the lack of a universally agreed definition and baseline standards raises concerns about adoption of best practices and potential greenwashing. BSI conducted a research project to understand the challenges faced by agri-food industry actors in integrating regenerative agriculture and to explore if standardization can accelerate its adoption.

Project Objectives

• Explore the need to define regenerative agriculture and its principles.
• Understand current challenges for global stakeholders in integrating regenerative agriculture.
• Assess if standardization can support widespread adoption and overcome challenges.
• Explore ways to facilitate scaling of trustworthy and verifiable regenerative agriculture practices.
• Build trust and assurance for market stakeholders to support adoption and guard against greenwashing.

Stakeholder Engagement

The research engaged with industry experts, trade associations, regulators, NGOs, and farmers from the UK and internationally to gather insights and identify areas needing guidance or standardization.

Recommendations

• Form a Strategic Advisory Group (SAG): To provide advice on strategies and solutions for accelerating regenerative agriculture adoption.
• Develop best practice guidance: To serve as a single reference point for understanding best practice in integrating regenerative agriculture.
• Conduct a review of informal standards: To map the full landscape of existing standards, frameworks, and schemes.
• Provide MRV support: To develop a ‘measurement architecture’ for measuring, reporting, and verifying regenerative agriculture outcomes.

Introduction

Regenerative agriculture involves improving the environment while producing food or fibre, but lacks a universally agreed definition. This ambiguity hinders demonstrating implementation and creates confusion among consumers and risks greenwashing. Standards can provide a consistent, trustworthy, and verifiable approach, offering guidance and alignment on expected outcomes and benefits.

Research Overview

Research Objectives

• Explore the need to define regenerative agriculture and its principles.
• Understand current challenges and needs for global stakeholders.
• Assess if standardization can overcome challenges and enable adoption.
• Explore ways to facilitate scaling of trustworthy regenerative agriculture practices.

Research Scope

The research covered various stakeholders in the supply chain, including farmers and supply chain actors like retailers, manufacturers, and financial institutions.

Research Methodology

• Standards Landscape: Reviewed formal standards related to regenerative agriculture.
• Discovery Workshop: Gathered insights from over 45 participants from various sectors.
• Stakeholder Interviews: Conducted 12 in-depth interviews with representatives from different sectors.
• Industry Roundtable: Validated research findings with 12 representatives from supply chain actors.

Key Findings

Alignment and Harmonization

Participants emphasized the need for harmonizing existing guidance and frameworks to support widespread adoption of best practice. An overarching framework and convergence of all existing best practice into one key reference point were suggested.

Principles versus Outcomes

Participants leaned towards either a ‘principles-led’ or ‘outcomes-based’ approach for creating a unified understanding of regenerative agriculture.

• Principles-led: Half of the participants preferred a principles-led approach, emphasizing the five principles of regenerative agriculture with contextual adaptation.
• Outcomes-based: The other half preferred an outcome-led understanding, focusing on observed outputs like increased soil health, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity.

Flexible Approach

A one-size-fits-all approach was deemed impractical due to the diversity of agricultural systems. A hybrid model combining principles and outcomes, allowing for local adaptation, was recommended.

Measuring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV)

Standardized MRV frameworks are crucial for building trust and enabling credible claims about regenerative agriculture practices.

• Metrics and Methods: Core metrics include soil health indicators, carbon outcomes, and water retention indicators. A tiered system for measurement was suggested to allow farmers to progress at their own pace.
• Data Collection and Management: Harmonization of data collection, storage, and management is needed to provide trust and assurance to all actors.

Understanding Drivers

Climate mitigation remains the primary driver for many organizations engaging with regenerative agriculture, aligning with net-zero and sustainability goals.

Farmer Engagement

Farmer engagement is critical for effective and widespread adoption. Support through education, financial incentives, and simplified reporting mechanisms is needed to address farmer apprehension about costs and risks.

Formal Standards

The standards landscape review identified 1,033 standards, most of which were irrelevant or of low relevance to regenerative agriculture. Only 225 standards were considered partially relevant, covering aspects like soil health, biodiversity net gain, and carbon sequestration.

Potential Areas for New Standardization

• Best Practice Guidance: To harmonize existing best practices and provide a single reference point.
• MRV: To develop a standardized yet flexible MRV system for understanding outcomes.
• Data Collection and Management: To harmonize data collection, storage, and management for MRV processes.

Recommendations

• Form a Strategic Advisory Group (SAG): To provide advice on strategies and solutions.
• Develop best practice guidance: To serve as a reference point for understanding best practice.
• Conduct a review of informal standards: To map the full landscape of existing standards.
• Provide MRV support: To develop a ‘measurement architecture’ for measuring, reporting, and verifying regenerative agriculture outcomes.