Grainswest - Spring 2025

Spring 2025 Grains West 28 THE CANADIAN CONVERSATION The National Index on Agri-Food Performance was launched in early 2020 to little fanfare. The organization had a slightly vague mandate to generally talk about sustainability in agriculture. Its creation was mainly driven by the need to play catch-up. Many countries and regions of the world had begun to adopt sustainability standards, but Canada had roughly nothing to contribute. Further, it was a timely necessity to tell the story of Canadian ag before someone else did. The organization’s namesake signature document, Index 1.0 was launched in spring 2023. The contents of the pilot document felt somewhat theoretical. A level of uncertainty surrounded what would be done with the paper, but it has been slowly retooled, and updates will come soon under the leadership of new executive director Tarra Drevet. First, its four key agrifood sustainability blocks, economic, environment, food integrity and societal well-being, drive the work of the Index’s staff. Within these focus areas are 20 specific indicators, which break down further into nuanced metrics, to be fleshed out by the Canadian agriculture and agrifood industry. The indicators each have their own working group populated by more than 155 organizational partners. Priority groups are biodiversity, food waste and food loss, food security, greenhouse gas emissions, nutritional information and soil health. Drevet is buoyant about the prospect of round two, dubbed Index 2024- 2025, as her staff work with industry, including Alberta Grains, on its next iteration. Progress is slow, but methodical, and ostensibly unstoppable. “It’s moving quite rapidly,” she said of Canada’s changing ESG landscape. “Something that used to be voluntary is becoming more mandatory in terms of these disclosures.” Disclosures today are voluntary, but they are lengthy, driven by influential organizations such as the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board. Currently, the Office for Superintendent of Financial Institutions has introduced climate-related financial disclosures, which would require financial institutions and pension plans to publish climate related financial findings. Drevet also points out that the Canadian Securities Administrators is working to create national standards regarding climate-related disclosures as evidence that ESG is on the move. Publicly traded Canadian companies, insurance providers, banks and more continue to face mounting pressure to adopt various ESG measures. As well, increasing scrutiny is appearing around input transportation practices, agrifood distribution, packaging and even questions surrounding food storage and spoilage. Data-wise, though, Drevet said nobody is interested in information that ties back to individual farms, companies or governments. “This is not a competition about saying who’s more sustainable than the other, but we are interested in good data and those aggregated data sets,” she said. “We are not talking about the level of farmer practices and what they do on the farm. What I like to talk about is responsible innovation. That means we leave it open for producers to do what they do best and innovate. It’s not telling someone the way it is or how they should do things; it’s more saying, ‘Here’s the data to support your decision-making. Now what do you want to do?’” And that’s where things stand at the Index: data collection. The next phase in its strategic plan runs until 2027. In addition, Index staff are conducting a project with the Standards Council of Canada this year to define its protocol to source data and how best to integrate aggregated datasets into the Index. And although the Index could be construed as a scorecard, Drevet insists that’s not the case. “I don’t think scoring makes sense,” she said. “We’re looking to really support clear transparent data and metrics that create alignment. If we’re going to do sustainable procurement and sourcing, we need that kind of alignment around the language and the data we’re using.” Canada increasingly requires this kind of shareable, provable data to attract future investment and to demonstrate credibility. It’s why Drevet is pleased to see so many industry FEATURE “ It’s not telling someone the way it is or how they should do things; it’s more saying, ‘Here’s the data to support your decision-making. Nowwhat do you want to do? ’” — Tarra Drevet