Soy
The following links serve as a companion to The 2050 Criteria, providing additional data, information, tools, and resources on the soy sector. For context and more complete guidance, download the full report.
Data & Information
- The Dutch Soy Coalition report Strategies for reducing the negative impacts of soy production: Responsible soy production provides background to the RTRS.
- A report by WWF-UK Soya and the Cerrado: Brazil’s Forgotten Jewel provides an analysis of the impacts on the Cerrado by soy expansion.
- Pilots of performance-based conservation practices and resource management are available through the Strategies Targeting American Agricultural Resources and Sustainability (STAARS) Program.
- General information can be found in Sustainability of U.S. Soybean Production: Conventional, Transgenic, and Organic Production Systems by the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology.
Evaluation & Certification
- WWF helped to establish the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) standard with a group of committed companies and NGOs in 2004. These actors share the same concern: the social, economic and environmental implications of the expansion of soy on the global market. The goal is to develop and implement globally applicable criteria for responsible soy.
- In Search of Responsible Soy : Key Characteristics and Comparison of Voluntary Soy Standards is a third party independent report commissioned by the Dutch Soy Coalition and researched by the Crem Consultancy examining and comparing existing sustainable soy production standards according to their environmental and social strengths and weaknesses.
- Selecting a Biomass Certification System – a Benchmark on Level of Assurance, Costs and Benefits, commissioned by the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture, and Innovation, compares different standards and certification options.
- Specific to the U.S., there are a variety of Conservation Practice Standards put out by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) which address many soy production practices.
- TheKeystone Center’s Field to Market Alliance provides science-based indicators of impacts of soybean production practices.
Soy Key Performance Criteria
