Can corporate supply chain sustainability standards contribute to soil protection?

Frouz, Jan; Cemus, Vojtech; Frouzova, Jaroslava; Peterkova, Alena; Kotecky, Vojtech

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282

Preprints

https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282

Preprints

05 Sep 2023

| 05 Sep 2023

Can corporate supply chain sustainability standards contribute to soil protection?

Jan Frouz, Vojtech Cemus, Jaroslava Frouzova, Alena Peterkova, and Vojtech Kotecky

Abstract. Companies increasingly view soil degradation in their supply chains as a commercial risk. They have applied sustainability standards to manage environmental risks stemming from suppliers’ farming operations. To examine the application of supply chain sustainability standards in soil protection, we combined global data on existing sustainability standards and their use in the food retail industry, a key sector in agrifood supply chains, with a case study in a medium-sized European country, to explore companies' options and views.

Soil quality is a priority objective in retail sector sustainability efforts: 41 % of the investigated companies apply some soil-relevant standard. But the standards lack specific and comprehensive criteria. Compliance typically requires that farmers are aware of soil damage risks and implement some mitigation measures; however, no measurable thresholds are usually assigned. This stands in contrast to some other provisions in a number of standards, such as deforestation criteria. There are two probable causes of this difference: Companies and certification bodies have prioritised other environmental challenges (e.g., pesticide use, biodiversity loss in tropical biomes) over soil degradation. Also, there are practical constraints to the useful standardisation of soil sustainability. Effective soil sustainability provisions will require measurable, controllable, and scalable multidimensional interventions and compliance metrics. Often, these are not yet available. The development of necessary practical tools is a priority for future research. In a case study, we developed a set of standards applicable in temperate European farming practice and adapted to the needs of food retailers. Based on discussion with the industry, farmers, and soil experts, the standard is based on specific commodities rather than production units and compliance with specific agronomic practices as opposed to direct measurements of soil quality.

Received: 12 Jun 2023 – Discussion started: 05 Sep 2023

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Jan Frouz, Vojtech Cemus, Jaroslava Frouzova, Alena Peterkova, and Vojtech Kotecky

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2023-1282', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Nov 2023

Frouz et al. explored the effects of supply chain sustainability standards on soil protection, which focusing on four questions: (i) To what extent are companies considering soil sustainability as part of their sustainability strategy? (ii) Do sustainability standards that companies use have a potentially meaningful impact on soil protection, and does that impact affect standards’ market penetration? (iii) Are schemes that emphasize the environment more likely to have a stronger soil-related impact? (iv) What are companies’ practical considerations in their practical application of soil protection criteria in VSSs? The topic is important and interesting, which connects social activities and soil protection. However, after careful reading, I can’t recommend publication in SOIL, as I think the four questions are not answered sufficiently, e.g. in Conclusions, I can’t see the key conclusions related to the four questions. I recommend the authors have more quantitative analysis based on the data collected and clearly show if the questions are properly responded.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Vojtěch Čemus, 16 Nov 2023
  
  Dear RC1,
  Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript and for your feedback.
  This is a valid and important point. While the research questions are answered in the Results, the Conclusions are rather generally worded. We propose to expand the Conclusions so that they explicitly and directly answer the research questions.
  Please find the proposed revised version of the Conclusions below.
  Best regards,
  Vojtech Cemus
  ----
  Conclusions
  Companies’ efforts to implement sustainability standards in their supply chains are a potentially important instrument of farmland soil sustainability. While companies show a rising interest in combating market risks related to soil degradation, the practical interventions have remained in early phases so far.
  We (i) found that food retail industry, a key sector in agrifood supply chains, generally considers soil sustainability as part of its sustainability strategy. Sustainability standards that include soil protection criteria were applied by 41% of the sampled retail companies. However, (ii) the sustainability standards used by companies tend to have only a limited impact on soil protection. Only 56 of the 165 third-party standards relevant to conventional agriculture regulate soil management to a greater extent than simply mentioning its importance. Surprisingly, there was no significant relationship between the impact of the standard and its market penetration (hectares of certified production area). (iii) Schemes that emphasise the environment are more likely to have a greater impact on soil, particularly for criteria related to the erosion, soil conservation and cover crops.
  There seem to be several major reasons for this. Companies focus their supply chain interventions on globally important environmental risks such as loss of high-biodiversity habitats, particularly in the tropics, and more easily manageable topics such as pesticide use management. Also, soil sustainability standards require relatively complex interventions and criteria. Provisions in the existing standards tend to be too generic to have a substantial impact.
  Based on a case study, we (iv) found that the key practical considerations for companies appear to be commodity-based (as opposed to farm-level) and in-house (as opposed to a third-party certification) approaches. They also prefer standards that are based on farming practices rather than soil properties. Cost, administrative requirements and complexity of standards are the main concerns.
  Soils are complex, and effective sustainability standards require practical solutions that are feasible for farmers to implement and for companies to standardise, measure, and control. Companies' preference for universal rules across markets is constrained by the variability of soils, farming practices, and regulatory environments. Unlike directly procured crops like fresh fruit or vegetables, complex supply chains (e.g., in processed foods) may require active engagement of a wider range of companies across markets as well as other relevant stakeholders. Soil and sustainability research can contribute with the development of relevant tools such as multidimensional sustainability criteria, compliance metrics, and spatially explicit, commodity-relevant datasets. Some of these approaches can be reasonably applied to other complex dimensions of agrifood supply chain sustainability such as small-scale farmland biodiversity.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on egusphere-2023-1282', Anonymous Referee #2, 03 Jan 2024

The paper addresses an interesting and topical issue and is very well written. I see six issues that need to be addressed before the paper can be published:
Issue 1: The paper mixes VSS on tropical products globally traded with an approach focused on local, temperate products, usually not globally traded with purchased through contracts. These are two very different situations, governed in very different ways.
Issue 2: The paper misses out on manufactured goods that are governed by different VSS. As a result, the paper has missed the world’s largest platform, SAI platform. SAI has recently developed standards for regenerative agriculture, focusing on soil health.
Issue 3: The paper misses out on recent developments on environmental impact reporting in food systems (e.g., PEF) in general and on soil health indicators, MRV systems, etc., such as in France and the Netherlands (soil health index, Rabobank, Soil Heroes, Soil Capital, Earthworm, etc.) in particular. An important recent development is the EU’s Mission Soil. Refer to the EJP Soil and the many Horizon Europe projects and the JRC efforts currently undertakes on these matters. Recent literature on these topics has not been used.
Issue 4: An important driver for companies is the goal to achieve net zero and the obligation to report on scope 3 emissions. The EU’s CSR directive has been a major milestone in this respect, broadening the scope from carbon to other environmental issues. Refer to Deconinck et al. (2023) for a recent overview (https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbad018).
Issue 5: The methodology is not well explained. More detail is needed here: what kind of coding is used in part 1, how is content analysis performed in part 2 and particularly how is researcher bias addressed when interpreting content in part 3 and finally part 4 misses any details on the case study: how many experts, what was their background, how were the workshops conducted, have interviews and workshop data be transcribed and coded, etc.
Issue 6: Due to all the previous issues, the Czech case study contributes little to the paper. The methodology is not well explained, but also the results seem to be very limited.
To conclude, I suggest to rewrite the paper, embedding the paper better in the relevant literature, and focusing on the first three objectives only, so maintaining a global focus. The methods used for these objectives seem well applied. I would then drop the case study and the focus on temperate products altogether given that the method used does not seem to be answering the research question well. Moreover, the methods used for the case study are not rigorous enough and too exploratory in nature.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Vojtěch Čemus, 19 Jan 2024
  
  Dear referee,
  Thank you very much for your valuable feedback and your time. We very much appreciate your insightful comments and will consider your suggestions when working on the updated version.
  On behalf of the research team,
  Vojtech Cemus
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-AC2
- AC3: 'Reply on RC2', Vojtěch Čemus, 25 Jan 2024
  
  Dear Referee,
  we are now finalising our revised version. Thank you for the useful comments that will greatly improve the paper. Here we address each of your comments and suggestions:
  Issue 1: The paper mixes VSS on tropical products globally traded with an approach focused on local, temperate products, usually not globally traded with purchased through contracts. These are two very different situations, governed in very different ways.
  We do not necessarily agree that the key distinction is between tropical, globally traded, and temperate, locally trade crops. The market model of many of the typical temperate (e.g. cereals or oilseeds) arguably resembles globally traded tropical cash crops, although the physical distance is shorter. Nevertheless, as far as we understand, the suggested solution is the one raised in issue 6 and the concluding paragraph (drop the case study), and we agree with that (see below).
  Issue 2: The paper misses out on manufactured goods that are governed by different VSS. As a result, the paper has missed the world’s largest platform, SAI platform. SAI has recently developed standards for regenerative agriculture, focusing on soil health.
  This is very good point. We are aware of this. We had to choose a sector for data gathering and food retail was an apparent choice since it covers a wide range of farm commodities. However, there are obvious trade-offs and less intensive reporting regarding manufactured goods by retail companies is one of them. SAI appears in the standards data (section 3.2. – Impacts of VSSs), but not in the retail data (section 3.1.), because companies do not report it. We are adding a paragraph on this issue to the Discussion.
  Issue 3: The paper misses out on recent developments on environmental impact reporting in food systems (e.g., PEF) in general and on soil health indicators, MRV systems, etc., such as in France and the Netherlands (soil health index, Rabobank, Soil Heroes, Soil Capital, Earthworm, etc.) in particular. An important recent development is the EU’s Mission Soil. Refer to the EJP Soil and the many Horizon Europe projects and the JRC efforts currently undertakes on these matters. Recent literature on these topics has not been used.
  This is also a good point. We will expand the Discussion so that it covers the emerging data and indicators infrastructure. Although often developed for other purposes, these initiatives can serve as useful tools in application for VSSs, e.g. for advanced metrics.
  Issue 4: An important driver for companies is the goal to achieve net zero and the obligation to report on scope 3 emissions. The EU’s CSR directive has been a major milestone in this respect, broadening the scope from carbon to other environmental issues. Refer to Deconinck et al. (2023) for a recent overview (https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbad018).
  Carbon footprint is an important angle of soil sustainability and we agree that it (and the relevant reporting) is a strong driver for business engagement. We will discuss this in the Introduction.
  Issue 5: The methodology is not well explained. More detail is needed here: what kind of coding is used in part 1, how is content analysis performed in part 2 and particularly how is researcher bias addressed when interpreting content in part 3 and finally part 4 misses any details on the case study: how many experts, what was their background, how were the workshops conducted, have interviews and workshop data be transcribed and coded, etc.
  We will expand the Methodology section, specifically parts 2.1. and 2.2. as suggested. Concerning part 2.3, the data we used was extracted directly from Standards‘ Map, so no additional researcher’s subjective assessment was involved. The methodological issues regarding 2.4. are void since we will follow the suggestion to remove the case study entirely.
  Issue 6: Due to all the previous issues, the Czech case study contributes little to the paper. The methodology is not well explained, but also the results seem to be very limited.
  Regarding the issue 6, we will follow the suggestion and remove the case study entirely.
  Once again, we thank you for your useful and insightful comments.
  On behalf of the research team,
  Vojtech Cemus
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-AC3

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2023-1282', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Nov 2023

Frouz et al. explored the effects of supply chain sustainability standards on soil protection, which focusing on four questions: (i) To what extent are companies considering soil sustainability as part of their sustainability strategy? (ii) Do sustainability standards that companies use have a potentially meaningful impact on soil protection, and does that impact affect standards’ market penetration? (iii) Are schemes that emphasize the environment more likely to have a stronger soil-related impact? (iv) What are companies’ practical considerations in their practical application of soil protection criteria in VSSs? The topic is important and interesting, which connects social activities and soil protection. However, after careful reading, I can’t recommend publication in SOIL, as I think the four questions are not answered sufficiently, e.g. in Conclusions, I can’t see the key conclusions related to the four questions. I recommend the authors have more quantitative analysis based on the data collected and clearly show if the questions are properly responded.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Vojtěch Čemus, 16 Nov 2023
  
  Dear RC1,
  Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript and for your feedback.
  This is a valid and important point. While the research questions are answered in the Results, the Conclusions are rather generally worded. We propose to expand the Conclusions so that they explicitly and directly answer the research questions.
  Please find the proposed revised version of the Conclusions below.
  Best regards,
  Vojtech Cemus
  ----
  Conclusions
  Companies’ efforts to implement sustainability standards in their supply chains are a potentially important instrument of farmland soil sustainability. While companies show a rising interest in combating market risks related to soil degradation, the practical interventions have remained in early phases so far.
  We (i) found that food retail industry, a key sector in agrifood supply chains, generally considers soil sustainability as part of its sustainability strategy. Sustainability standards that include soil protection criteria were applied by 41% of the sampled retail companies. However, (ii) the sustainability standards used by companies tend to have only a limited impact on soil protection. Only 56 of the 165 third-party standards relevant to conventional agriculture regulate soil management to a greater extent than simply mentioning its importance. Surprisingly, there was no significant relationship between the impact of the standard and its market penetration (hectares of certified production area). (iii) Schemes that emphasise the environment are more likely to have a greater impact on soil, particularly for criteria related to the erosion, soil conservation and cover crops.
  There seem to be several major reasons for this. Companies focus their supply chain interventions on globally important environmental risks such as loss of high-biodiversity habitats, particularly in the tropics, and more easily manageable topics such as pesticide use management. Also, soil sustainability standards require relatively complex interventions and criteria. Provisions in the existing standards tend to be too generic to have a substantial impact.
  Based on a case study, we (iv) found that the key practical considerations for companies appear to be commodity-based (as opposed to farm-level) and in-house (as opposed to a third-party certification) approaches. They also prefer standards that are based on farming practices rather than soil properties. Cost, administrative requirements and complexity of standards are the main concerns.
  Soils are complex, and effective sustainability standards require practical solutions that are feasible for farmers to implement and for companies to standardise, measure, and control. Companies' preference for universal rules across markets is constrained by the variability of soils, farming practices, and regulatory environments. Unlike directly procured crops like fresh fruit or vegetables, complex supply chains (e.g., in processed foods) may require active engagement of a wider range of companies across markets as well as other relevant stakeholders. Soil and sustainability research can contribute with the development of relevant tools such as multidimensional sustainability criteria, compliance metrics, and spatially explicit, commodity-relevant datasets. Some of these approaches can be reasonably applied to other complex dimensions of agrifood supply chain sustainability such as small-scale farmland biodiversity.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on egusphere-2023-1282', Anonymous Referee #2, 03 Jan 2024

The paper addresses an interesting and topical issue and is very well written. I see six issues that need to be addressed before the paper can be published:
Issue 1: The paper mixes VSS on tropical products globally traded with an approach focused on local, temperate products, usually not globally traded with purchased through contracts. These are two very different situations, governed in very different ways.
Issue 2: The paper misses out on manufactured goods that are governed by different VSS. As a result, the paper has missed the world’s largest platform, SAI platform. SAI has recently developed standards for regenerative agriculture, focusing on soil health.
Issue 3: The paper misses out on recent developments on environmental impact reporting in food systems (e.g., PEF) in general and on soil health indicators, MRV systems, etc., such as in France and the Netherlands (soil health index, Rabobank, Soil Heroes, Soil Capital, Earthworm, etc.) in particular. An important recent development is the EU’s Mission Soil. Refer to the EJP Soil and the many Horizon Europe projects and the JRC efforts currently undertakes on these matters. Recent literature on these topics has not been used.
Issue 4: An important driver for companies is the goal to achieve net zero and the obligation to report on scope 3 emissions. The EU’s CSR directive has been a major milestone in this respect, broadening the scope from carbon to other environmental issues. Refer to Deconinck et al. (2023) for a recent overview (https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbad018).
Issue 5: The methodology is not well explained. More detail is needed here: what kind of coding is used in part 1, how is content analysis performed in part 2 and particularly how is researcher bias addressed when interpreting content in part 3 and finally part 4 misses any details on the case study: how many experts, what was their background, how were the workshops conducted, have interviews and workshop data be transcribed and coded, etc.
Issue 6: Due to all the previous issues, the Czech case study contributes little to the paper. The methodology is not well explained, but also the results seem to be very limited.
To conclude, I suggest to rewrite the paper, embedding the paper better in the relevant literature, and focusing on the first three objectives only, so maintaining a global focus. The methods used for these objectives seem well applied. I would then drop the case study and the focus on temperate products altogether given that the method used does not seem to be answering the research question well. Moreover, the methods used for the case study are not rigorous enough and too exploratory in nature.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Vojtěch Čemus, 19 Jan 2024
  
  Dear referee,
  Thank you very much for your valuable feedback and your time. We very much appreciate your insightful comments and will consider your suggestions when working on the updated version.
  On behalf of the research team,
  Vojtech Cemus
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-AC2
- AC3: 'Reply on RC2', Vojtěch Čemus, 25 Jan 2024
  
  Dear Referee,
  we are now finalising our revised version. Thank you for the useful comments that will greatly improve the paper. Here we address each of your comments and suggestions:
  Issue 1: The paper mixes VSS on tropical products globally traded with an approach focused on local, temperate products, usually not globally traded with purchased through contracts. These are two very different situations, governed in very different ways.
  We do not necessarily agree that the key distinction is between tropical, globally traded, and temperate, locally trade crops. The market model of many of the typical temperate (e.g. cereals or oilseeds) arguably resembles globally traded tropical cash crops, although the physical distance is shorter. Nevertheless, as far as we understand, the suggested solution is the one raised in issue 6 and the concluding paragraph (drop the case study), and we agree with that (see below).
  Issue 2: The paper misses out on manufactured goods that are governed by different VSS. As a result, the paper has missed the world’s largest platform, SAI platform. SAI has recently developed standards for regenerative agriculture, focusing on soil health.
  This is very good point. We are aware of this. We had to choose a sector for data gathering and food retail was an apparent choice since it covers a wide range of farm commodities. However, there are obvious trade-offs and less intensive reporting regarding manufactured goods by retail companies is one of them. SAI appears in the standards data (section 3.2. – Impacts of VSSs), but not in the retail data (section 3.1.), because companies do not report it. We are adding a paragraph on this issue to the Discussion.
  Issue 3: The paper misses out on recent developments on environmental impact reporting in food systems (e.g., PEF) in general and on soil health indicators, MRV systems, etc., such as in France and the Netherlands (soil health index, Rabobank, Soil Heroes, Soil Capital, Earthworm, etc.) in particular. An important recent development is the EU’s Mission Soil. Refer to the EJP Soil and the many Horizon Europe projects and the JRC efforts currently undertakes on these matters. Recent literature on these topics has not been used.
  This is also a good point. We will expand the Discussion so that it covers the emerging data and indicators infrastructure. Although often developed for other purposes, these initiatives can serve as useful tools in application for VSSs, e.g. for advanced metrics.
  Issue 4: An important driver for companies is the goal to achieve net zero and the obligation to report on scope 3 emissions. The EU’s CSR directive has been a major milestone in this respect, broadening the scope from carbon to other environmental issues. Refer to Deconinck et al. (2023) for a recent overview (https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbad018).
  Carbon footprint is an important angle of soil sustainability and we agree that it (and the relevant reporting) is a strong driver for business engagement. We will discuss this in the Introduction.
  Issue 5: The methodology is not well explained. More detail is needed here: what kind of coding is used in part 1, how is content analysis performed in part 2 and particularly how is researcher bias addressed when interpreting content in part 3 and finally part 4 misses any details on the case study: how many experts, what was their background, how were the workshops conducted, have interviews and workshop data be transcribed and coded, etc.
  We will expand the Methodology section, specifically parts 2.1. and 2.2. as suggested. Concerning part 2.3, the data we used was extracted directly from Standards‘ Map, so no additional researcher’s subjective assessment was involved. The methodological issues regarding 2.4. are void since we will follow the suggestion to remove the case study entirely.
  Issue 6: Due to all the previous issues, the Czech case study contributes little to the paper. The methodology is not well explained, but also the results seem to be very limited.
  Regarding the issue 6, we will follow the suggestion and remove the case study entirely.
  Once again, we thank you for your useful and insightful comments.
  On behalf of the research team,
  Vojtech Cemus
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1282-AC3

Jan Frouz, Vojtech Cemus, Jaroslava Frouzova, Alena Peterkova, and Vojtech Kotecky

Data sets

Data for the manuscript: Can corporate supply chain sustainability standards contribute to soil protection? Vojtech Cemus https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Data_for_the_manuscript_Can_corporate_supply_chain_sustainability_standards_contribute_to_soil_protection_/23295851

Jan Frouz, Vojtech Cemus, Jaroslava Frouzova, Alena Peterkova, and Vojtech Kotecky

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Short summary

Soil degradation is a topic that companies increasingly recognise as a business risk. But how effectively do they use sustainability standards to prevent it in their supply chain? Investigating the global food retail industry, we discovered that soil is a priority objective for companies but standards usually lack specific criteria. Working with retailers in a European country, we explored ways they can improve their suppliers’ everyday practice and overcome barriers that hinder implementation.


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