The Issue

The global demand for food, fuel, fiber and other essential goods is growing rapidly. These products are sourced from landscapes – large areas where commodity production needs to be balanced with local and national environmental, social and economic priorities. Sustainable landscape production models – for agricultural, forest and extractive goods – can meet global commodity needs while generating tangible benefits for people and the planet. To support the development of these models, there is a need for a global framework that can measure progress over time, and drive incentives and finance towards sustainable landscapes.

 

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What Is LandScale (formerly Landscape Standard) and How Does It Work?

LandScale (LS) is a shared initiative of the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, the Rainforest Alliance and Verra. 

LS is an emerging tool to help drive landscape-scale sustainability. It will provide measurable indicators of the state and trajectory of sustainability at the landscape level across environmental, social, and economic dimensions. This landscape level application sets LS apart from other sustainability standards, complementing sustainability efforts that target individual production sites, activities or sectors.

LandScale in Action

LandScale responds to the diverse needs of key players in landscape production:

 

 

To view a complete visual overview of LandScale, please click here.

LandScale Pilots

Early versions of the LandScale assessment framework are being tested in Costa Rica, Ghana, Guatemala, Peru, and Mexico. These pilot projects are led by partners of the LandScale consortium and cover a range of different management structures, geographies, and commodities.

LandScale at the Global Level

Goals and indicators at the global level will support targets and criteria tailored to the specific landscape context. Relative progress and absolute threshold indicators will enable reporting on both continuous improvement and compliance with sustainability commitments. This framework will provide data-based performance results to help generate incentives and finance that advance landscape sustainability actions.

Learn more about how LandScale will catalyze sustainability at scale in the two following recorded webinar sessions; you can also view the presentation used in these webinars here. 

Webinar recording 1 – Asia-Europe – How will LS catalyze sustainability at scale from Verra on Vimeo.

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LandScale is being developed in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Nature Conservation Research Centre, Proforest and Solidaridad, with input from a broad range of stakeholders. It is supported by the International Climate Initiative of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), Germany, and the BHP Foundation. 

 

Global Partners

 

 

Donors

International Climate Initiative (IKI)

 

Advisory Group

For a list of the LandScale’s Advisory Group members, please click here.

 

Further Information

• LandScale Terms of Reference

• Advisory Group Terms of Reference