FSN consultation on "Core food and agricultural indicators for measuring the private sector’s contribution to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals"

The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calls for collective transformational changes of all key actors in society. Businesses and the private sector more broadly can provide an important contribution to achieving the SDGs, although their specific role is not sufficiently mainstreamed in the SDG agenda.

SDG 12 (sustainable consumption and production) and target 12.6 explicitly encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and integrate sustainability information in their reporting. As the custodian agency of SDG indicator 12.6.1(number of companies publishing sustainability reports), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) developed the Guidance on core indicators for entity reporting on the contribution towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (GCI). UNCTAD’s GCI provides a useful starting point for assessing corporate performance on the SDGs as a set of standard baseline indicators. FAO has sought to build off of UNCTAD’s indicators by identifying additional indicators and tailoring guidance to assess the specific impact of food and agriculture private actors on the achievement of the SDGs.

The resulting Core Food and Agricultural Indicators for Measuring the Private Sector Contribution to the SDGs Supplement Guideline provides practical information on how to measure the contribution of food- and agriculture private actors to the SDGs in a consistent manner and in alignment with countries’ needs on monitoring the attainment of the SDG agenda. The indicators address four sub-sectors of the food and agriculture sector, namely: i) agriculture production (crop and animal production and aquaculture); ii) food processing, iii) food wholesale, and iv) food retail. For each indicator, the guideline provides the definition, rationale, measurement methodology and conceptual interpretation. The links and alignment of each indicator with relevant SDG indicators are also included.

The indicators and associated methodological guidelines are the result of an extensive review of existing frameworks and key standards, and wide internal peer review among FAO’s technical departments.

The Office of the Chief Statistician of FAO invites you to review the draft indicators and guideline and provide feedback as part of wider efforts to seek feedback within the UN agencies and partner institutions, and pilot testing of the indicators with private organisations. The indicators will then be finalised based on the input received through this consultation process and pilot testing, and launched alongside the Food Systems Summit later this year. FAO will work with countries and relevant partners across UN agencies and standard setting bodies to support private sector organisations in using the indicators, and support national governments and wider stakeholders on integrating information into overall analysis and reporting of progress on the SDGs.  

Comments are welcome in English, Spanish or French. The consultation is open until May 10th, 2021.

We thank you very much for taking the time to provide your feedback on the core indicators and guideline. Your input will be very valuable in ensuring that they are effective at contributing towards measurement of progress on SDGs.