An Overview of Sustainability Assessment Frameworks in Agriculture

Abdallah Alaoui, Lúcia Barão, Carla S. S. Ferreira and Rudi Hessel
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Abdallah Alaoui: Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 12, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Lúcia Barão: Center for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c), University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal
Carla S. S. Ferreira: Department of Physical Geography and Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, 11419 Stockholm, Sweden
Rudi Hessel: Wageningen Environmental Research, 6708 WG Wageningen, The Netherlands

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-26

Abstract: Recent research established a link between environmental alterations due to agriculture intensification, social damage and the loss of economic growth. Thus, the integration of environmental and social dimensions is key for economic development. In recent years, several frameworks have been proposed to assess the overall sustainability of farms. Nevertheless, the myriad of existing frameworks and the variety of indicators result in difficulties in selecting the most appropriate framework for study site application. This manuscript aims to: (i) understand the criteria to select appropriate frameworks and summarize the range of those being used to assess sustainability; (ii) identify the available frameworks to assess agricultural sustainability; and (iii) analyze the strengths, weaknesses and applicability of each framework. Six frameworks, namely SAFA, RISE, MASC, LADA, SMART and public goods (PG), were identified. Results show that SMART is the framework that considers, in a balanced way, the environmental, sociocultural and economic dimensions of sustainability, whereas others focused on the environmental (RISE), environmental and economic (PG) and sociocultural (SAFA) dimension. However, depending on the scale assessment, sector of application and the sustainability completeness intended, all frameworks are suitable for the assessment. We present a decision tree to help future users understand the best option for their objective.

Keywords: agriculture; sustainability frameworks; socio-economic and environmental indicators; soil land management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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