Here you will find information about two practical instruments – the Biodiversity Performance Tool and the Biodiversity Monitoring System - created within the EU LIFE Initiative “Biodiversity in Standards and Labels for the Food Sector” – short Food & Biodiversity.
Both tools have been further developed within the EU LIFE project “Insect Responsible Sourcing Regions”: Indicators for insect protection and the corresponding questions have been added and changes to make the BPT more user friendly were realized. Furthermore, in the present BPT Insects users will find the possibility to get reports on the development of indicators over time.
We recommend you to use the BPTI and the BMS! It is a perfect combination providing synergies and contributing significantly to biodiversity protection.
The BPT Insects has an additional focus on insect protection with specific indicators and protection measures. The indicators of the BPT Insects cover also all criteria of the Basis-Set of Biodiversity Criteria agreed by the German Association “Food for Biodiversity”.
The BPT helps to assess the quality of implementation of measures as well as monitoring of the whole Biodiversity Action Plan. Therefore, the outputs of the BPT are not only useful for farmers, but also interesting for certifiers as well as product and quality managers of food companies. They will get a simple but meaningful overview regarding the quality of the BAP and the biodiversity performance on the farm.
Standards and food companies have protected access to include data of their associated farms, to aggregate data sets and to elaborate multiple options of analysis by combining the indicators.
The main objective was and is to improve the biodiversity performance of standards and sourcing requirements in the food industry by helping standard organisations to integrate efficient biodiversity criteria into their schemes and motivating food processing companies and retailers to include comprehensive biodiversity criteria into their sourcing guidelines. Besides advising food standards and companies, training modules and material have been elaborated for farm assessors, certifiers and managers of food companies and the Biodiversity Performance Tool was developed. A Biodiversity Monitoring system and database facilitates monitoring of the biodiversity performance of certified farms. National sector initiatives in Germany and in Spain are further developing the activities after the end of the project in 2020.
The Initiative was realized by a European consortium of Global Nature Fund, Lake Constance Foundation, Agentur AUF! (Germany), Fundación Global Nature (Spain), Solagro and agoodforgood (France) and Instituto Superior Técnico (Portugal).
The project is co-financed by
Coordinated by
In cooperation with the agriculture, food sector, local authorities and NGOs, insect responsible sourcing regions (IRSRs) are established. Regional working groups with participation of all main land users will implement Regional Biodiversity Action Plans (BAPs) to improve the protection of insects and biodiversity in general at the landscape level. At least 10 frontrunner farms in each region are already implementing proven and innovative measures. More farmers and local authorities, forest managers etc. are motivated to implement BAPs.
The Biodiversity Performance Tool as well as the Biodiversity Monitoring System have been adapted/extended with indicators for insect protection. Monitoring via BPT and BMS will be complemented by a citizen’s science monitoring approach. In all IRSR and beyond, training for farmers, assessors and managers of food companies is offered. Another important goal is to create attractive public and private incentives for farmers that go beyond legally required biodiversity and insect protection. These incentives should recognize the added value of IRSR products and cover an appropriate share of the additional costs. The project will help increase demand for insect-friendly food products by implementing a marketing and communication strategy for the end consumer. The concept of IRSR is transferable to all regions in Germany and the EU. The results and outcomes will be widely disseminated and the establishment of further IRSRs will be supported.
Project partners: Lake Constance Foundation (coordinator), Global Nature Fund, Netzwerk Blühende Landschaft, Bäuerliche Erzeugergemeinschaft Schwäbisch Hall, Nestlé Deutschland.
The project was co-financed by
Coordinated by
