COSA offers clear and objective information on how different sustainable practices affect producers and their communities. They can then make better-informed decisions on the appropriate mix of policy instruments that will be more likely to have the desired outcome.
One of the world’s largest development agencies recognizes the need to hold its investments to a higher standard of overall sustainability. By commissioning COSA to design and pilot a Sustainability Measurement Tool Kit, it seeks to improve the consistency and relevance of the metrics applied across the many development projects that it funds. In addition, the transparency of such a system makes it easier to learn and to communicate lessons clearly. Having reliably comparable ways of measuring sustainability in agriculture opens the door to benchmarking outcomes in different regions. While still in its nascent stage, it is expected that this will help to refine and better design projects as well as to scale up the specific and diverse aspects that are working e.g. credit facilitation, training, or ecological practices.