A recipe to create social and environmental metrics

A big shift is happening in the environmental and social sustainability landscape. Companies are now being held accountable for their supply chains, prompting a growing need to develop social and environmental metrics that measure sustainability.

Metrics are systems used to measure sustainability objectively. Social and environmental metrics help establish baselines, track improvements, and assess project impacts.

At Fairagora Asia, we develop social and environmental metrics either by adapting existing standards or creating custom frameworks aligned with global guidelines. For small farms, we offer tailored frameworks to help them advance their sustainability journey.

Methodology for Creating Social and Environmental Metrics

The first step is obvious but of high importance: analyze the situation. Clearly define the objectives of your social and environmental metrics and identify key questions. Determine how and where data will be collected, the reliability of data sources, and the level of verification required. What do you want to measure and why? Where and how will the data be collected? Who will provide the data and how reliable will these be? Which level of verification will the project require? A thoughtful review of the existing standards will be necessary to assess if one of these could meet the project needs and therefore avoid duplicating efforts. It might not be the case, specifically if the supply chain involves small farms or if the project focuses on an unusual commodity.

Next, define general categories to organize your sustainability metrics effectively. This step facilitates benchmarking your framework against recognized international standards.

Define a set of social and environmental metrics for each category, along with criteria to determine whether minimum requirements are met. These may include legal documents, surveys, or structured questions.

There is a wide range of variations in the complexity of the algorithm behind a metric when it comes to analyzing the results of the questions. It can be as simple as a “pass or fail” single question, or it can get more complicated: you can set trigger questions whose answers will determine the following questions, ask similar questions to different actors of the supply chain to cross-check their answers, and set up metric requirements conditional to additional information previously collected. Out of context, this last sentence is hard to understand. The following figure should help you to better apprehend the different complexity levels of the algorithms behind the metrics.

Additional complexity behind social metrics

Some social sustainability metrics are straightforward, like verifying worker contracts. Others are more complex due to subjectivity. Expert reviews and careful question formulation are essential to ensure reliability, especially when considering education, language, and cultural differences.

Testing surveys on a small sample is crucial before full project roll-out. Multiple testing phases may be required to refine questions, answer formats, and data collection methods.

How do social and environmental metrics interact?

It is always interesting and relevant to analyze the interactions between various metrics of your framework. In the long run, it can even help you to build some predictive risk assessment. Sometimes bad environmental practices lead to higher social risks. For example, a farm that uses a lot of chemicals and dangerous products should receive more attention regarding the health and safety of the workers.

In other cases, there can be a counter-intuitive trade-off between environmental and social sustainability. An example in the sugarcane industry is the pre-harvest burning practice. In terms of good environmental practices, the farm should avoid burning. However, when looking at the social-environmental interaction, the farms that suddenly stopped burning and that did not use any harvesting machine might require additional scrutiny on their social metrics. Why? Because the farm would then automatically be in need of extra staff hours to cope with the extra working time required to cut fresh sugarcane. Did the farm hire extra staff? If not, did any children help? Did the workers work overtime? Did they get paid for it?

How does Fairagora Asia work with metrics?

At Fairagora Asia, we work with social and environmental metrics in all our sustainability projects. We adapt existing standards or create custom frameworks tailored to small farms, ensuring gradual improvement through measurable milestones.