Using the Sustainability Monitoring and Assessment Routine (SMART) for the Systematic Analysis of Trade-Offs and Synergies between Sustainability Dimensions and Themes at Farm Level

Christian Schader, Lukas Baumgart, Jan Landert, Adrian Muller, Brian Ssebunya, Johan Blockeel, Rainer Weisshaidinger, Richard Petrasek, Dóra Mészáros, Susanne Padel, Catherine Gerrard, Laurence Smith, Thomas Lindenthal, Urs Niggli and Matthias Stolze
Additional contact information
Christian Schader: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland
Lukas Baumgart: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland
Jan Landert: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland
Adrian Muller: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland
Brian Ssebunya: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland
Johan Blockeel: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland
Rainer Weisshaidinger: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), A-1010 Wien, Austria
Richard Petrasek: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), A-1010 Wien, Austria
Dóra Mészáros: Institute for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management, Szent István University, Hungary
Susanne Padel: The Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm (ORC), Newbury, Berkshire RG20 0HR, UK
Catherine Gerrard: The Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm (ORC), Newbury, Berkshire RG20 0HR, UK
Laurence Smith: The Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm (ORC), Newbury, Berkshire RG20 0HR, UK
Thomas Lindenthal: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), A-1010 Wien, Austria
Urs Niggli: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland
Matthias Stolze: Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: When trying to optimize the sustainability performance of farms and farming systems, a consideration of trade-offs and synergies between different themes and dimensions is required. The aim of this paper is to perform a systematic analysis of trade-offs and synergies across all dimensions and themes. To achieve this aim we used the Sustainability Monitoring and Assessment Routine (SMART)-Farm Tool which operationalizes the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA) Guidelines by defining science-based indicator sets and assessment procedures. It identifies the degree of goal achievement with respect to the 58 themes defined in the SAFA Guidelines using an impact matrix that defines 327 indicators and 1769 relations between sustainability themes and indicators. We illustrate how the SMART-Farm Tool can be successfully applied to assess the sustainability performance of farms of different types and in different geographic regions. Our analysis revealed important synergies between themes within a sustainability dimension and across dimensions. We found major trade-offs within the environmental dimension and between the environmental and economic dimension. The trade-offs within the environmental dimension were even larger than the trade-offs with other dimensions. The study also underlines the importance of the governance dimension with regard to achieving a good level of performance in the other dimensions.

Keywords: SMART-Farm Tool; sustainability assessment; SAFA Guidelines; farm-level; agriculture; comparability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:3:p:274-:d:65883

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