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The New Zealand sustainability dashboard: unified monitoring and learning for sustainable agriculture in New Zealand

Research Archive

The New Zealand sustainability dashboard: unified monitoring and learning for sustainable agriculture in New Zealand

Manhire, J. ; Moller, H. ; Barber, A. ; Saunders, Caroline M. ; MacLeod, C. ; Rosin, C. ; Lucock, D. ; Post, Elizabeth A. ; Ombler, F. ; Campbell, H. ; Benge, J. ; Reid, J. ; Hunt, Lesley M. ; Hansen, P. ; Carey, Peter ; Rotarangi, S. ; Ford, S. ; Barr, T.
Type: Working Paper
Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/10182/5605
Originally published: 2012-04 as ARGOS publications by Agriculture Research Group on Sustainability and available at http://hdl.handle.net/10182/5605
Rights: Copyright © The Authors.
Keywords: sustainability assessment; sustainable agriculture; sustainability reporting; software development
Fields of Research: 070108 Sustainable Agricultural Development

Abstract:

The New Zealand Sustainability Dashboard project will develop a sustainabilityassessment and reporting tool in partnership with five primary industry sectors in NewZealand. Internationally recognised frameworks and their key generic sustainabilityperformance indicators (KPIs) will be co-opted to ensure that overseas consumers canbenchmark and verify the sustainability credentials of New Zealand exported products. Wewill also design New Zealand and sector-specific KPIs to guide farmers and local consumersto best practices of special relevance to New Zealand society, ecology and land care.Monitoring protocols will be described, where possible for the farmers themselves to rapidlyscore their own performance across economic, social and environmental dimensions of foodand fibre production. A multifunctional web application will be created that facilitatesuploading of regular monitoring results and instantly summarises and reports back trends tothe growers, to industry representatives, and to agriculture regulators and policy makers atregional and national government levels. Tests of the accuracy and statistical reliability of theKPIs will be coupled with ongoing research on how much the farmers use the tool, whether itchanges their actions and beliefs for more sustainable agriculture, and whether stakeholdersat all levels of global food systems trust and regularly use the tool.The Dashboard will be more than just a compliance and eco-verification tool – it will alsoprovide a hub for learning to become more sustainable. It will create an information ‘clearinghouse’ for linking past data sources and at least five existing decision-support softwareapplications so that growers can discover optimal choices for improved farming practice,should the Dashboard alert them that their KPIs are approaching amber of red alertthresholds. We will also design and test two new decision-support packages; one enablingfarmers to calculate their energy and carbon footprint and how it can best be reduced; and awhole-farm ‘What if’ decision-support package that explores how investment in improvingone sustainability KPI (eg. application of nitrogen fertilser) affects another (eg. farm profit).The Sustainability Dashboard will also include customisation capabilities for use in producttraceability; for undertaking surveys of users; for estimating the value placed on differentaspects of sustainability by growers, industry representatives, regulators and consumers; forcomparing Māori and other communities’ values in sustainability assessments; and foridentifying market opportunities and constraints. The Dashboard web application will bedesigned so it can be quickly integrated into an industry’s/sector’s existing IT platform andinfrastructure and this will facilitate rapid uptake. Some host industries may force growers touse the Sustainability Dashboard as part of their existing Market Assurance scheme.

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