Smaller agribusinesses and sustainability

ARE smaller agribusinesses instrumental to the agri-food sector’s sustainable future? Sustainability is beyond environmental concerns. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has developed a unified approach towards sustainability through a set of five principles of sustainable food and agriculture. These principles are improved resource utilization efficiency; immediate and direct action to protect, conserve, and enhance natural resources; protection and improvement of rural livelihoods and the social well-being of rural households equitably; enhanced resilience of communities, people in these communities, and the surrounding ecosystem; and enforcement of responsible and effective governance systems. The inclusion of governance expands the sustainability dimension beyond the triple-bottom line.

In fact, according to the FAO, governance systems must result in a “right balance between private and public sector initiatives,” among others. At the small enterprise level, this means that sustainability is to be integrated with strategy, operations, and culture in value creation and delivery. How can this be possible? The United Nations Global Compact (or the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative) introduced the “Roadmap for Integrated Sustainability” that seeks to explore means of sustainability integration by way of best practices, tools, and strategies. Using a Sustainability Stages Model, the roadmap illustrates to entrepreneurs and their teams that the sustainability journey of businesses is unique, and recognizes the iterative nature of moving from the current stage towards the desired stage of sustainability integration.