We are pleased to announce a public call for Advisory Group members for the development of the Landscape Standard (LS). LS is intended to address the lack of global standards to assess progress towards key sustainability outcomes at a landscape scale, beyond the performance of a specific land use, sector or actor.

Business-as-usual models of land management, natural resource use and infrastructure development continue to threaten water quality and availability, soil health, and ecosystem integrity while greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the effects of climate change intensify. No matter how well a given actor manages resources, meaningful sustainability cannot be achieved without considering the cumulative impact of activities across an entire landscape.

To address this, Verra, in partnership with Rainforest Alliance, Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance, Proforest, Solidaridad, the Nature Conservation Research Center, and IUCN are developing the Landscape Standard (LS)–a framework that helps companies, governments, financiers, and donors credibly assess and report on progress towards environmental, social and economic sustainability in productive landscapes.

Play a role in shaping the Landscape Standard

To help ensure effective strategic input from and engagement with a broad range of potential stakeholders (e.g., related initiatives, governments, producer organizations and companies), we are currently seeking interested parties to join the LS global Advisory Group.

Members of the Advisory Group will provide input on strategy and help to ensure the framework demonstrates value for key stakeholders, and that it is workable and efficient to apply in practice. Among the main Advisory Group tasks will be the review of various documents including at least two draft versions of the standard. The Advisory Group will convene (online/via teleconference) approximately four times per year between June 2018 and June 2019 with the possibility to engage beyond that timeframe as the standard evolves. Applications will be open until 15 June 2018.

If you have any questions please send them to LandscapeStandard@verra.org