Sectors

African magic mixed with cutting edge green technology

Elizabeth Dlamini, herbalist and skincare adviser to a whole of local women, has skin that glows. She beams as she explains why. “Here in the Royal Kingdom of Swaziland we proud of our plants that we use in our traditional beauty regimes. Our grandmothers taught us how to prepare cosmetics from the oil of the Marula nut”. Now, Ubuntu Natural is bringing Swaziland’s best-kept beauty secret to the international cosmetics market.

Atlantic Canada Best Atlantic Canada Best Management Practices Program

Syngenta is a global agribusiness company with more than 24,000 employees in over 90 countries. The company is a leader in crop protection and ranks third in the high-value commercial seeds market. Syngenta Canada operates two research facilities that go beyond products and services to support commodity-based innovation in areas including bio-fuels and health benefits. Globally, Syngenta invests over $1 billion per year in research. The Canadian head office is in Guelph, Ontario, with about 250 employees spread throughout Canada.

CCA Environmental Stewardship Award CCA Environmental Stewardship Award

The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) was established in 1932 and acts as the national “voice” of Canada’s 86,000 beef producers. The CCA is a non-profit federation of eight provincial member associations. The CCA board of directors consists of 27 producers representing eight provinces. It carries out day-to-day business in support of the industry and provides the leadership and unity necessary to for the beef industry to speak as one voice. The beef industry is the largest source of farm cash receipts in Canada. In 2008, the sale of cattle and calves totalled $6.59 billion or just over 14% of total cash receipts (including crops). Canada’s beef industry contributes approximately $25 billion to the Canadian economy annually.

Planting trees in the Philippines to preserve biodiversity

In the Philippines, Pioneer Hi-Bred is carrying out a reforestation program that aims to positively impact its environment so that the company can benefit from improved water and soil conditions. It demonstrates that corporation involvement in biodiversity conservation projects can positively impact business prospects.

Growing a staple food with less water & fewer GHG emissions in India

Committed to conserving more water than it uses in India, PepsiCo has engaged in a water use reduction program in agriculture, a sector that accounts for over 85% of the country’s water consumption, and which offers significant water saving opportunities.

Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST)

http://www.fastinternational.org/

FAST is an internationally focused, member driven, non-profit association representing financial institutions and producers dedicated to the sustainable production and trade of products.

The Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN)

http://sanstandards.org/sitio/sections/display/2

The SAN promotes efficient and productive agriculture, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable community development by creating social and environmental standards. Additionally, it promotes best practices for the agricultural value chain, providing incentives to producers so that they adhere to the standards while motivating companies and consumers to support sustainability.

UTZ Certified

http://www.utzcertified.org/index.php

UTZ CERTIFIED is one of the largest sustainable agriculture supply chain programs for coffee, cocoa and tea in the world: one-third of all coffee that is sustainably traded worldwide is certified by UTZ.

Measuring Up: Synchronizing Biodiversity Measurement Systems for Markets and Other Incentive Programs

http://willamettepartnership.org/measuring-up

Emerging environmental markets, in tandem with existing incentive programs, have the potential to make effective contributions to conservation, but little is known about how these programs quantify biodiversity. This report, prepared for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of Environmental Markets, focuses on two areas of action that could help improve effective investments for biodiversity:

1. Standardizing systems for measuring the outcomes of current incentive programs, and
2. Providing options for how federal agencies and others might support biodiversity incentives, particularly markets for biodiversity.

Willamette Partnership: Protocols, Tools and Templates

http://willamettepartnership.org/tools-templates

The Willamette Partnership is a diverse coalition of conservation, city, business, farm, and science leaders in the Willamette River basin who are working to shift the way people think about, value, manage, and regulate the environment.  The standard credit issuance process, rules, and guidelines for generating credits and debits are described in protocol documents. Through the Counting on the Environment stakeholder process, the Willamette Partnership is continuing to develop protocols for more holistic ecosystem accounting.  Currently, protocols are under development for additional ecosystem currencies, voluntary tracking and accounting, and batch verification for small projects. Policy frameworks, permits, contracts, and forms used for creating, buying and selling conservation outcomes as offset credits in the Willamette can be used as templates for others designing ecosystem markets.  A lot of new information was developed during the course of developing an ecosystem credit accounting system.  To make participation in markets  easier, standard templates for various contractual agreements, certificates, protocols, and standards have been developed.