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The Sustainability Standard meaningfully addresses a broad range of areas related to sustainable agriculture. For growers, it provides a meaningful tool to measure, communicate and improve the adoption of sustainability best practices. For buyers, The Sustainability Standard provides assurance that suppliers are adopting best practices related to sustainable agriculture, and allows for tracking performance across the supply chain in order to pinpoint opportunities for improvement.
The Sustainability Standard is applicable to farming operations and facilities. Operations will be audited and certified as an add on to their food safety audits (e.g., PrimusGFS) or as a stand-alone certification. The objective of the program is to assess and communicate performance on sustainability metrics and inspire continuous improvement of sustainability practices.
The Sustainability Standard covers a comprehensive set of environmental and social best practices, with a focus on advanced Integrated Pest Management (IPM). In addition to IPM, it addresses environmental protection, soil health, nutrient and irrigation management, air quality, waste and recycling, water and energy conservation, worker welfare and emergency management.
Why the Sustainability Standard?
As a grower, producer, packer/shipper The Sustainability Standard can help you:
Share your sustainability practices with your customers, enabling them to amplify your story and achievements with their customers and the public.
Complete a sustainable agriculture audit as an add-on to a food safety audit.
Track performance and get relevant insights across your farms and operations and identify opportunities for sustainability improvements.
Preserve and expand access to national and international markets.
As a buyer, The Sustainability Standard can help you:
Meet the transparency needs of your customers while offering continuous improvement tools to your suppliers.
Meet your sustainable sourcing commitments in a credible, verified way.
Track and compare performance across your suppliers and identify opportunities for improvement.
Verify environmentally and socially responsible agricultural production practices.
What is the Sustainable Food Group Sustainability StandardTM?
The Sustainable Food Group Sustainability Standard™ is a comprehensive sustainable agriculture certification prioritizing the needs of growers, food companies and the environment. For growers, it provides a meaningful tool to measure, communicate and improve the adoption of sustainability best practices. For buyers, The Sustainability Standard provides assurance that suppliers are adopting best practices related to sustainable agriculture and allows for tracking performance across the supply chain to pinpoint opportunities for improvement.
Who is involved in the Sustainability Standard?
Sustainable Food Group is the scheme owner. Sustainable Food Group is part of the IPM Institute of North America, a nonprofit with over 20 years of experience in implementing sustainability best practices in agriculture. As experts in supply chain sustainability, Sustainable Food Group develops high impact, science-based programs for food industry leaders like Walmart, Sysco, Frontier Co-op and more. Azzule and Primus Auditing Ops are our partners in the development of the Sustainability Standard. Azzule is an industry leader in data management that created the digital platform for auditing and assessing farms and facilities that participate in the program; Primus Auditing Ops is a leading third-party auditing company that is the first certification body to offer on-site audits for the Standard.
What sets the Sustainability Standard apart from other certifications?
The Sustainability Standard addresses environmental, social and quality best practices for agricultural producers, packers and processors, with a focus on Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Self-assessment and certification encourage continuous improvement of sustainability practices, and audits may be combined with food safety audits to streamline the audit process. Additionally, the Sustainability Standard uses a nuanced scoring mechanism in which auditors score each question on a 5-point scale rather than simply pass or fail. This enables more precise scoring and an improved ability to document improvement over time, a key aspect of sustainability.
What are the Sustainability Standard normative documents?
Checklist: A list of questions that comprise the Standard, complete with a space to score each question and to write notes.
Audit Guidelines: An explanation of the scoring system, glossary of terms, and a list of the question that comprise the Standard, including.
General Regulations: Details of the Standard, auditor requirements, certification process, guidance for certification bodies, use of logo and trademark, and more.
Internal Management System Checklist for Group Certification: A checklist against which a Group’s Internal Management System is scored.
How long is the audit cycle?
Audits occurs on a three-year cycle. The initial on-site audit occurs as scheduled by the client; 12 months after that, the first desk audit occurs; 24 months after, a second desk audit occurs; and, 36 months after, an on-site recertification audit occurs and the cycle restarts. See the audit process flowcharts in Program Documents for further details.
Do auditors calculate the points received for each question?
No, auditors award a score between 0 and 5 for each question. The Azzule system calculates the total points awarded for each question.
What are Minimum Requirements and how do they work?
Minimum Requirements are questions that an auditee must pass in order to achieve certification. They cover essential sustainable agriculture practices. A “passing” score for most Minimum Requirements is 5/5; for a few questions it is 4/5 (these cases are defined in the Audit Guidelines).
What is a Group?
In the context of the Sustainability Standard, a Group is a self-designated assemblage of farms or facilities and its suppliers whose products and conduct adhere to a set of standards as designated through an Internal Management System (IMS).
What is an Internal Management System?
An Internal Management System (IMS) is a formalized system of documents processes, procedures and responsibilities to achieve outcomes aligned with the Sustainability Standard. Determined by the IMS holder and adhered to by the Group. The IMS is reviewed annually by the Certification Body.
How does an operation achieve certification?
To achieve certification, an operation must comply with all Minimum Requirements and receive a minimum score of 70%.
What does a Group need to do to attain certification?
To attain certification, a Group must do three things: 1) all audited operations must meet all Minimum Requirements of the Sustainability Standard, including the questions specifically for Group Certification, 2) The average score of all operations in the Group, including farm and facility operations, must be 70% or higher and 3) the IMS for the Group must pass all Minimum Requirements of the IMS Checklist.
Can auditors award a score for a question that is different than the score options outlined in the Audit Guidelines?
For some questions, the Audit Guidelines define scoring options for 0, 1, 3 and 5 points (rather than every value 1 through 5). An auditor can award a score outside of these options; the guidelines are provided to assist in decision-making, and the auditor can use their best judgement based on experience and training to determine what score to award. Auditors are expected to provide their rationale for scores outside of the defined options.
What if an auditee has less than three months of documentation?
If an auditee has less than 3 total months of documentation for review, the auditor cannot award full credit for paperwork questions.
Training is a required part of the auditor approval process for the Sustainability Standard and is an option for clients or other parties interested in thoroughly understanding Sustainability Standard requirements and procedures. To increase the availability of such training events, Sustainable Food Group is offering a Training Center program. In this program, organizations other than Sustainable Food Group may be approved to conduct Sustainability Standard trainings.
Approved Training Centers may offer two types of training:
Sustainability Standard Auditor Training: For third-party auditors of approved Certification Bodies who will be conducting on-site and desk audits of organizations seeking or maintaining Sustainability Standard certification. This training is also suitable for personnel who will be conducting internal Group assessments (i.e., internal audits) as part of the requirements for Group certification.
Sustainability Standard Client Training: For clients interested in gaining a greater understanding of the Sustainability Standard requirements, normative documents and audit procedures.
Training Centers may also be Certification Bodies for the Sustainability Standard scheme, but do not have to be. Detailed expectations for training events, including record keeping, promotion, Training Center conduct and trainer requirements can be found in the Training Center General Requirements. The Training Center General Requirements and Training Center Application are both available in the Program Documents section.
Approved Training Centers
Links to access training events will be provided here once training centers have been onboarded.
How is this certification program different from others?
The Sustainability Standard is comprehensive and meaningful. By comprehensive, we mean that it is applicable to all farming operations and facilities and covers a wide set of environmental and social best practices, with extra focus on advanced Integrated Pest Management (IPM). In addition to IPM, The Sustainability Standard addresses environmental protection, soil health, nutrient and irrigation management, air quality, waste and recycling, water and energy conservation, worker welfare and emergency management.
This means that growers will have insight into a wide range of sustainability practices that are important to their operations, their long-term success and their buyers. For buyers it means that they will have the full picture of their suppliers’ sustainable agriculture performance. By meaningful, we mean that we focus on practices and metrics that companies and the public care about and that have real benefit to growers, farm workers and the environment. We make The Sustainability Standard valuable for certified organizations and their customers by providing tools to track sustainability practices in real-time so that they can communicate directly with buyers. This enables certified organizations to demonstrate improvement while it is happening, not just once every three years in an audit. We are also creating a way for shippers/buyers to define their sustainability criteria and measure and track how their suppliers perform while encouraging the push for constant improvement over time.
Self-assessment and certification to The Sustainability Standard evaluates the extent to which a product has been produced in a sustainable way from planting to distribution. Audits may also be combined with food safety audits, with potential to save participants time and money.
What are the benefits of participation?
Self-assessment helps identify opportunities for continuous improvement. Certification to The Sustainability Standard documents your operation’s high performance, providing evidence you can present to buyers, shareholders, employees and the community.
How can I participate as a producer, packer or processor?
Please contact your preferred certification body from the list of approved CBs above. They will prompt you to fill out an application. Once that application is approved, your CB will help you schedule an audit.
Are there opportunities for facilities (packers, processors) to become certified?
Yes, facility operations can pursue certification for their facility (individual certification) or their facility and suppliers (group certification). Facilities with internal or quality management systems that set standards for their suppliers can apply for group certification, which certifies that the facility(ies) as well as their suppliers meet the Sustainability Standard. Group certification demonstrates to buyers and potential buyers that your products are grown, sourced and processed sustainably.
As a certification body, what do I do next if this opportunity interests me?
If you are interested in offering audits to the Sustainability Standard, please complete a certification body application, found above in Program Documents, and send to . Once your application is received and approved, we will schedule a training to get your auditors ready to conduct competent audits.
How many buyers recognize certification to this Standard?
The Sustainability Standard is currently recognized by Walmart, Sysco, Giant Eagle, Whole Foods Market and Kroger for its robust IPM criteria. These buyers have all released policies that require fresh produce suppliers to adopt IPM practices as verified by third parties and have each included the Sustainability Standard on their lists of accepted certifications. Read more at the links below:
Certification will typically take a maximum of 45 days after a successful audit.
How long is the certification period?
Certification is valid for 36 months. The due date for the subsequent audit will be 36 months from the date of the previous audit and not from the previous certificate issue date. In years one and two, the CB will conduct a document review to confirm continued conformance with minimum requirements and other key questions. A lapse in certification requires the supplier to restart the process with a certification audit, incurring additional costs and time commitment, compared to a renewal audit.
What is a certification body?
A certification body, also sometimes referred to as an auditing services company, is a provider of certification services to auditees.
How can I stay up to date with the Sustainability Standard?
To Learn More, Please Contact
Josie Talbert
Project Manager II: Sustainable Food Group
Angelina Mico
Coordinator: Sustainable Food Group
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Josie Talbert
Project Manager II: Sustainable Food Group
Josie graduated from The University of Wisconsin La Crosse with a B.S. in Geography, a concentration in Environmental Science and a minor in Environmental Studies. Josie values sustainability across all industries, but is specifically passionate about sustainability in food and agriculture due to the large potential for positively impacting both people and planet. This passion led Josie to accept a position with the IPM Institute on the Sustainable Food Group (SFG) team. With SFG, Josie has been able to help companies create sustainability goals around packaging and food waste; co-author a white paper on regenerative agriculture; manage custom supply chain programs for large retailers; analyze pesticide risk and agricultural risk in priority crops; launch the Sustainability Standard Certification program; and more. Josie loves backpacking and camping out West and beyond with her family and friends.
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Angelina Mico
Coordinator: Sustainable Food Group
Angelina earned a Bachelor of Science in Nutritional Sciences and Dietetics with a Certificate in Global Health from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She grew up in her family’s small business Italian restaurant, where she spent many days in the backyard gardenexperiencing the deep connection betweenfood, culture, and the environment. After working on campus food justice and independent climate activism projects, she learned that working upstream through sustainability was the most impactful route to solving public health problems faced by consumers. This public health approach led her to work with the Sustainable Food Group (SFG), where she has begun learning about howsustainable food productionefforts affect growers, consumers, and the environment. Within SFG, she provides onboarding, training, and technical support for the Sustainability Standard certification program in addition to a number of other projects.In her free time, she enjoys cycling, cooking, and learning Italian language.