L.SFP.1003 - National Coordinator for the Environmental Credentials platform

Summary

The Project Coordinator employed project management expertise to support the project consortium to achieve the overall goals of the project. A detailed workplan, risk assessment and mitigation plan, monitoring and evaluation plan, communications plan, and governance plan were all created to underpin the project activity. An Advisory Group and co-design groups for each theme provided input at relevant stages to guide the project and ensure the resulting platform was fit for purpose. An initial version of the platform was released for pilot testing in 2023. Beef producers from across Australia were able to pilot the platform using their own properties and provide feedback about usability, content and relevance. Feedback was analysed and shared with the platform developers to enable modification and improvement of the platform prior to its release.

Objectives

The overall project objectives as per the Australian Government grant deed obligations were:
1. Develop a national online platform for grassfed producers that enables them to access emerging markets by demonstrating their sustainability credentials.
2. Motivate grassfed producers to implement sustainability practice change through self-directed learning.
3. Provide a baseline for aggregated and de-identified national trends data for the beef industry across sustainability areas that can be used for monitoring, directing adoption and industry wide reporting.

Key findings

The main outcome was the four-year project, which achieved the primary aim of delivering a national, opt-in common system for demonstrating land management and sustainability credentials. The system includes an opt-in online platform, guidance on standards, and learning modules to inform continual improvement. The national platform utilises satellite imagery for verification of sustainability credentials and provides a solution for producers wishing to demonstrate sustainability performance to various markets against five areas:
1. Vegetation management
2. Ground cover and soil conservation
3. Biodiversity stewardship
4. Carbon balance
5. Drought resilience.
The Environmental Credentials of Australian grassfed beef platform was built through a robust co-design process, meaning it is designed by beef producers, for beef producers.

Benefits to industry

The project team are confident the following desired project outcomes have been achieved through the successful delivery of the project:
1. Australian grassfed beef producers are able to be rewarded for demonstrating their environmental credentials to customers, consumers and the community.
2. Australian grassfed beef producers are able to undertake self-directed learning to improve performance across five key environmental themes.
3. Australian grassfed beef producers are able to respond to other market drivers (for example but not limited to customer requirements, accessing farm loans or schemes etc.) requiring demonstrable environmental credentials.

MLA action

MLA should continue to support the Environmental Credentials platform and work towards making the recommended updates. This will ensure that the platform remains relevant for industry.

Future research

A project objective of providing a baseline for aggregated and de-identified national trends data for the beef industry across sustainability areas that can be used for monitoring, directing adoption and industry wide reporting, was not achieved by the conclusion of the project timeframe. However this will be possible as the platform is launched and producers begin to use the platform and enter data. It is recommended that this platform capability is actioned as it will provide significant value to industry.

Throughout the extensive pilot testing and refinement phases of the project, ideas for future improvements and extensions of the platform outside the scope of the current project have emerged. A strong case exists for further investment to allow for additional innovation and design features to be added to the platform, and expansion of the learning framework to allow for greater education and practice change. MLA are keen to engage with future project partners to attract investment to allow for phase two of the project to be created.

There is opportunity for the platform capability to be expanded to cater for lamb and goat producers, as well as other themes of sustainability such as water use efficiency and animal welfare.