Common Methods and Sustainability Indicators

This chapter summarizes the common method and indicators used throughout this book to assess the sustainability performance of Food Quality Schemes (FQS) and their reference products. It contains the list of 23 indicators used to assess sustainability in food and agri-food value chains. This list was drawn up on the basis of a literature review and the FAO’s Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems (SAFA) indicators (FAO 2013). The chapter presents the assumptions and choices, the process of data collection and the indicator estimation methods designed to assess the three sustainability dimensions within a reasonable time constraint, i.e. three person.months for each food quality scheme and its non-certified reference product. Several prioritizations were set regarding data collection (indicator, variable, value chain level) together with a level of representativeness specific to each variable and product type (country and sector). This chapter also summarizes how relatively common variables (e.g., number of animals per hectare, …) collected for each case study are combined into indicators (e.g., carbon footprint), thus providing the key for their interpretation in subsequent chapters.