By Martin Banks - 8th December 2011
Top British scientist John Beddington has called for a "level playing field" in order to measure food sustainability.
Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, Beddington, chief scientific adviser to the UK government, addressed the challenges of 'measuring' sustainability.
During the event "How green is my apple?", organised by the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium, representatives from government, industry, NGOs and academia warned that solving the dilemma of a 'common framework' for assessing sustainability remains a priority for policy makers, business and individuals around the world.
Panellists stressed that overcoming these challenges are within reach by applying a common scientific approach.
Beddington urged EU policy makers to make a better use of science and technology through the regulatory process when taking decisions about sustainability.
He said, "In my Foresight report on 'The future of food and farming' I emphasised a clear need to develop a level playing field in how we measure food sustainability.
"I am grateful to the British chamber for creating this opportunity to work with the European business community to explore how we can develop metrics fit for this purpose," added Beddington.
During a panel debate, Drew Purves, head of the computational ecology and environmental science group at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, outlined how new simulation models of ecosystem structure and function could one day revolutionise how we define and measure ecosystem health, ecosystem services, and ultimately, sustainability.
He drew analogies with the simulation models of the global climate system that are used to inform carbon-climate policy.
Purves demonstrated an early prototype of a 'global ecosystem model' that Microsoft Research has developed with UNEP-WCMC, which simulates how animals grow, die, reproduce, eat plants, and eat each other.
"Could models like this help in developing a more 'joined up' approach to environmental sustainability?" he asked.
Another keynote speaker, Dirk Voeste, head of sustainability and product stewardship at BASF Agricultural Solutions, presented a newly developed scientific methodology, called AgBalance, to measure sustainability in agriculture.
The method based on environmental, economic and social indicators has been specifically developed for the agricultural sector.
Endorsed by a number of leading accreditation organisations, AgBalance aims to provide knowledge for fact-based decision-making on how the sustainability of agricultural products and processes could be improved.
Further comment came from Tony Long, director of the WWF European policy office in Brussels, focused on identifying and valuing natural capital to transform economic activity for future sustainability drawing particularly on WWF's experience in protecting forests in the Heart of Borneo.
Many of the Europe's most important science, environment and food sector organizations were represented at the event, which was hosted by the British chamber of commerce in Belgium's food security, safety and sustainability task force.
Paul Leonard, chairman of the task force said, "It is important to stimulate this dialogue in order to help each other develop relevant metrics for measuring sustainability as a basis for policy and decision making."
