Stage 2: Measuring MLA's contribution to the adoption of environmentally sustainable management practices

Summary

Maintaining and improving the condition of natural resources has grown as an issue over the last decade. It has evolved from being an altruistic pursuit into one of pragmatism and self-interest for the sustainability of many industries in particular, the agriculture sector.

The importance of maintaining and improving the condition of natural resources continues to grow, particularly in light of the challenging environmental conditions of this past decade. It is increasingly recognised as a business imperative and, as such, greater effort is being made to contribute to, and track, the progress made by business and industry towards maintaining and improving the condition of natural resources.

MLA has already illustrated the importance of the environment to their business through its triple-bottom-line approach to evaluation, but now MLA is going a step further by developing a specific framework to measure its progress in, and contribution to, environmental sustainability.

This framework is employed in this report, which presents a retrospective assessment of MLA's contribution to the environmental sustainability of the industry through its impact on the adoption of natural resource management practices. While this study makes significant headway in undertaking the first assessment of MLA's contribution to the environment, the inference that can be drawn from the numbers is limited. This is for two main reasons: by focusing upon the management practices identified by the framework, the linkages between MLA investment and the management practices are unclear. Furthermore, the reliance upon existing data has constrained both the management practices that could be assessed, as well as the methodology that could be employed.

​However, this study has some very important insights. It highlights the complexity associated with isolating MLA's impact and it provides recommendations for going forward and improving the ease with which this assessment can be repeated. The methodology for measuring MLA's contribution and the results from implementing this methodology make up the main part of this study.

The report concludes with the lessons learned from the experience of trying to estimate MLA's contribution to the environmental sustainability of the red meat industry, and looks at ways in which MLA might better facilitate future measurement of MLA's contribution. This report also includes several appendices, which hold additional and technical information that may be of interest to some readers.