13th December 2023
The Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform (SAI Platform) has recognised the Bonsucro Production Standard version 5.2 as being gold level equivalent to the SAI Platform Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) 3.0, after a detailed benchmarking process.
SAI Platform and the FSA
SAI Platform is a non-profit global network addressing global sustainability challenges facing food production. Through its Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) – which is a free tool – it enables businesses to assess and validate on-farm sustainability within their supply chains. It can be applied to most crops and all regions and covers a wide range of issues.
The FSA is a universal farm-level standard for agricultural crops. It has become a common reference framework for sustainable farming and sourcing, and existing farm level schemes, like Bonsucro certification, can be benchmarked against it and claim equivalency.
Achieving Gold Level equivalence
The FSA benchmark covered all parts of our system regarding certification against version 5.2 of the Bonsucro Production Standard: the standard content, its governance, and the assurance processes.
The benchmark looked at alignment between the Production Standard and the FSA’s principles, as well as intended performance levels, with the commodity-specific nature of the Production Standard, and its applicability across numerous regions, taken into account. Questions covered farm management and the workforce, soil management, biodiversity, air quality and emissions, and labour conditions.
The Bonsucro Production Standard meets the threshold for FSA Gold Level equivalence. SAI Platform noted the Bonsucro Production Standard to be very thorough, addressing all the essential and intermediate questions, and 83% on the advanced level questions.
Relevance for Bonsucro members
There are lots of sustainability tools and frameworks for sugarcane producers to measure their sustainability performance. By benchmarking the Bonsucro Production Standard against other frameworks such as the FSA, it creates a link between the schemes and helps users of the Bonsucro scheme to know where their sustainability achievements sit in comparison to users of other standards.
With this benchmark, Bonsucro certificate holders can demonstrate the value of their product to customers using the FSA, which may lead to new opportunities for trade. It will reduce the need for additional audits against other schemes to show their products’ sustainability credentials; and the crossover between schemes will make additional audits, when required, much easier. Certificate holders will be able to make off-product claims regarding the gold level equivalency, after checking their draft claim with SAI Platform.
The benchmarking process further reinforces the Bonsucro Production Standard as a reliable system for sugarcane producers looking to prove their sustainability credentials.
The benchmark result has been validated and can be found on the SAI Platform website. If you would like to find out more about the Bonsucro Production Standard, speak to our Standards team.
