Paris, 13 October 2026: the Consumer Goods Forum’s Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative (SSCI) is seeking feedback from industry stakeholders on its proposed minimum criteria for programmes that audit and certify regenerative agricultural practices.
The global regenerative agriculture market is currently valued at USD 11.3 billion, and is expected to grow by over 11% in the next few years. Consumer goods leaders are driving this growth by expanding their on-farm projects to both secure resilient supply chains and meet consumer demand for sustainably sourced products.
As these projects expand, various auditing, monitoring, and certification programmes have emerged to verify on-farm practices.
With over 230 different environmental labels present in the EU market alone, this crowded landscape can prove challenging for businesses to actually evaluate and compare them.
To bring clarity to the consumer goods industry, the SSCI benchmarks auditing, monitoring and certification programmes against a robust global baseline on social and environmental compliance, supporting companies with corporate due diligence tools they can trust.
The current environmental benchmark from the SSCI evaluates programmes against criteria covering soil health, pollution prevention, water protection, land use and biodiversity – but only partially covers regenerative agriculture practices.
The SSCI, in collaboration with Peterson Solutions, is currently developing minimum required criteria to cover regenerative agriculture programmes to help companies make informed sourcing decisions concerning these programmes.
The SSCI is not creating a new definition or farm-level standard, but a n assurance and benchmarking framework to evaluate sustainability programmes that audit, monitor and certify regenerative-agricultural practices. third-party schemes.
The proposed criteria centre on soil health, ongoing improvement (rather than a rigid pass/fail system), a whole-farm approach, and support for farmer livelihood.
Before a potential roll-out, we aim to ensure that these criteria are practical and fit for purpose by asking industry experts for their input.
If your company manages or sources from agricultural supply chains, the SSCI’s environmental benchmark updated with the regenerative agriculture criteria can bring clarity to your sourcing policies and support long-term supply chain resilience.
Additionally, participants can download the report with the criteria included.
Have questions or comments? Contact the SSCI team directly.
