With consumer demand for nature-positive wool outstripping supply, a new project is underway to provide consistency and certainty for woolgrowers around measuring and reporting on environmental performance.
Led by Australian Wool Innovation and the Woolmark Company in collaboration with Farming for the Future, the Natural Capital and Environmental Performance Measures for Australian Wool Growers project aims to support woolgrowers with on-farm decision making and reporting to their customers, using consistent, science-based, practical metrics.
The project is due for completion this month.
TWC’s aim with this project is to define a standard set of measures, in consultation with industry, which are science-based, verifiable and cost effective for growers to use. The project is researching the existing metrics used in ecological research and sustainability certifications, and consulting with industry on standards for defining and measuring regenerative or nature positive trends on farm.
The project will preserve the ability of certification organisations and brands to satisfy their unique market needs, while ensuring claims and reporting are defensible, providing greater clarity and certainty for woolgrowers, brands and consumers.
Farming for the Future program director Dr Sue Ogilvy says the model they are exploring is comparable to chips in computers.
“Laptops come in different sizes, colours, displays and other features that meet individual customer preferences, but in general, the chip that runs them is identical,” she says.
“In this project, the metrics are the chip, and the laptop is the different certification pathways, brands and claims.
“All with unique value proposition and applications for different markets.”
“There are significant benefits of consistency in metrics at multiple levels of the supply chain, but particularly for wool growers who can use standardised metrics for their own management and decision-making, as well as for reporting to supply chains and banks if there’s an incentive for them to do so.
“Consistency in metrics will enable ag tech innovation to support simple, cost-effective measurement.
“And science-based metrics will align with International Frameworks for accounting for carbon and nature and provide rigour to markets such as the EU.”
Australian Wool Innovation global sustainability manager Emma Gittoes Bunting said AWI recognises sustainability is a journey.
“Woolgrowers and consumers have different priorities, and they start from different positions and histories,” Ms Bunting says.
“This project will accelerate the uptake of sustainability reporting amongst woolgrowers and enable consumers and brands to reward woolgrowers for their sustainability achievements,” she added.
Established by the Macdoch Foundation in 2021, Farming for the Future is a public good agricultural research and change activation program building the first national-scale evidence base of natural capital and its relationship to business performance on Australian farms.
The evidence base, containing findings about different enterprise types across Australia, will be made publicly available to support:
