Implementing farm-level environmental sustainability in environmental performance indicators: A combined global-local approach

Abstract

As major generators of environmental impacts, farms play a crucial role in enhancing the environmental sustainability of food-supply chains. However, appropriately assessing farm environmental performance poses a challenge; a plethora of different indicators have been used for this purpose, sometimes in the absence of conceptual considerations. This paper develops a broadly implementable framework for defining and measuring farm environmental performance which complies with the environmental sustainability concept viewed from an ecological perspective. After providing a critical review of existing indicators in the literature for measuring farm environmental performance and identifying their strengths and above all their weaknesses, it proceeds to develop ideas on how to implement the environmental sustainability concept at farm level. Starting at the macro level, these ideas are based on the central concept of ecosystem carrying capacity (constraints) referring to biophysical threshold thinking. The implementation of this concept at farm level results in the framework that we propose for measuring farm environmental performance. Environmental sustainability requires compliance with the carryingcapacity constraints imposed by the natural ecosystem within which a farm operates.

Factors Affecting Global versus Local Environmental and Economic Performance of Dairying: A Case Study of Swiss Mountain Farms

“…Only the on-farm environmental impacts were considered for the quantification of farm local environmental performance, whereas both on-farm and off-farm impacts were accounted for when quantifying farm global environmental performance [7,8]. For a list of the models used for (i) the estimation of direct field and farm emissions and (ii) the environmental impact assessment, refer to Repar et al [8].…”

“…Farm environmental sustainability requires complying with the ecosystem's carrying capacity constraints at both local and global ecosystem levels [7]. In terms of farm environmental performance assessment, this implies the separate implementation of local and global environmental performance indicators [7].…”

“…In terms of farm environmental performance assessment, this implies the separate implementation of local and global environmental performance indicators [7]. Improvement of farm environmental sustainability requires improvement of both global and local environmental performance dimensions [7].…”

“…In terms of farm environmental performance assessment, this implies the separate implementation of local and global environmental performance indicators [7]. Improvement of farm environmental sustainability requires improvement of both global and local environmental performance dimensions [7]. The empirical implementation of both global and local environmental performance indicators in a case study of Swiss dairy farms revealed-depending on the environmental impact category considered-both synergies and trade-offs between the two environmental performance dimensions, with trade-offs predominating over synergies [8].…”

“…When investigating the effects of different factors on farm environmental performance, none of these studies distinguished between the global and local environmental performance of a farm as defined by Repar et al [7]. With a few exceptions, the environmental focus of these studies was-due to their LCA perspective-mostly on what Repar et al [7] defined as farm global environmental performance, since the LCA approach by definition does not separately assess the farm local environmental performance dimension, as defined by Repar et al [7]. Investigations simultaneously analysing the factors potentially affecting the global and local environmental, as well as economic performance of dairying are still lacking.…”