Life Cycle Costing and Food Systems: Concepts, Trends, and Challenges of Impact Valuation

Our global food systems create pervasive environmental, social, and health impacts. Impact valuation is an emerging concept that aims to quantify all environmental, social, and health costs of food systems in an attempt to make the true cost of food more transparent. It also is designed to facilitate the transformation of global food systems. The concept of impact valuation is emerging at the same time as, and partly as a response to, calls for the development of legal mechanisms to address environmental, social, and health concerns. Information has long been understood both as a necessary precursor for regulation and as a regulatory tool in and of itself. With global supply chains and widespread impacts, data necessary to produce robust and complete impact valuation requires participation and cooperation from a variety of food system actors. New costing methods, beyond basic accounting, are necessary to incorporate the scope of impacts and stakeholders. Furthermore, there are a range of unanswered questions surrounding realizations of impact valuation methods, e.g. data sharing, international privacy, corporate transparency, limitations on valuation itself, and data collection standardization. Because of the proliferation of calls for costing tools, this article steps back and assesses the current development of impact valuation methods. In this article, we review current methods and initiatives for the implementation of food system impact valuation. We conclude that in some instances, calls for the implementation of costing have outpaced available and reliable data collection and current costing techniques. Many existing initiatives are being developed without adequate consideration of the legal challenges that hinder implementation. Finally, we conclude with a reminder that although impact valuation tools are most often sought and implemented in service of market-based tools for reform, they can also serve as a basis for robust public policies

CURRENT ISSUES AFFECTING TRADE AND TRADE POLICY: AN ANNOTATED LITERATURE REVIEW

This review provides a base of literature describing current issues and research on the impacts of lobalization and the industrialization of agriculture and recent approaches to analyze and model agricultural trade and trade policies. Three key factors of the survey are differentiated goods, global economic integration and international supply chain linkages. The review covers 182 publications, which are presented alphabetically by author with a brief annotation describing how it relates to the above criteria. The articles are also indexed by keyword. A brief summary highlights the documented literature and includes a series of issues for future discussion and research.International Relations/Trade,

Sharpening the Cutting Edge: Corporate Action for a Strong, Low-Carbon Economy

Outlines lessons learned from early efforts to create a low-carbon economy, current and emerging best practices, and next steps, including climate change metrics, greenhouse gas reporting, effective climate policy, and long-term investment choices

The Role of the Health Care Sector in Expanding Economic Opportunity

This report provides an overview and critical assessment of the ways in which multinational pharmaceutical companies currently participate in expanding economic opportunities in developing countries. As pharmaceutical companies become more involved in both business and philanthropic activities in developing countries, it will be important for each company to identify the best strategies available to it to create new economic opportunities and to leverage the benefits of activities already underway. While the primary focus of the industry is, and will most likely continue to be, on increasing access to health care, the potential for expanding economic opportunities through its activities should not be overlooked as a significant outcome. The analysis and case studies contained in the report highlight companies' contributions to economic opportunity expansion through job creation, training and capacity building, and shaping public policy. The report also offers recommendations for future work to increase economic opportunities. This paper is part of the Economic Opportunity Series published by the CSR Initiative at Harvard University Kennedy School

Gaining Depth: State of Watershed Investment 2014

Last year, governments, businesses, and donors channeled $12.3 billion (B) toward nature-based solutions to the global water crisis. Water users and public funders were paying land managers to repair and protect forests, wetlands, and other natural systems as a flexible, costeffective strategy to ensure clean and reliable water supplies, resilience to natural disasters, and sustainable livelihoods. These deals paid for watershed protection and restoration across more than 365 million (M) hectares (ha) worldwide in 2013, an area larger than India.The value of investment in watershed services1 (IWS) - referring to funding for watershed restoration or protection that delivers benefits to society like aquifer recharge or erosion control - has been growing at anaverage rate of 12% per year. The number of operational programs grew by two thirds between 2011 and 2013, expanding in both scale and sophistication as program developers introduced new tools to track returns on watershed investment, coordinated efforts across political boundaries, and delivered additional benefits like sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity protection

Lessons from Leaders: Mainstreaming corporate valuations of impacts and dependencies on nature

Historically, business practices have negatively affected the natural environment. Many environmental problems originated from businesses’ view of nature as a source of cheap inputs. Moreover, businesses haven’t accounted for negative environmental impacts on “natural capital” (e.g. water, forests, pollination, etc.) from manufacturing, pollution, toxic waste, shipping, and transportation. Given that “you can’t manage what you don’t measure,” various organizations are developing models and metrics to quantify business impacts on natural capital, and leading businesses are forging ahead with financial valuations. For example, the Kering Group displays their natural capital valuations through an interactive “Environmental Profit and Loss” calculator, displaying global environmental impacts in Euros. Despite the compelling logic of accounting for impacts on nature, few businesses do so. Our research conducted through in-depth interviews with businesses, NGOs, consultants, and others highlights the array of motives behind these companies’ efforts, as well as the challenges they have overcome. In addition, our research demonstrates that valuations of natural capital affect decision making in powerful and unexpected ways

Value-at-risk of carbon constraints : an input oriented approach of resource scarcity

The purpose of this study is to broaden the discussion on corporate enviromental risk exposure by integrating an oil scarcity factor. This broader approach can be utilized as a means of instigating a discussion on carbon risks beyond output oriented adaption and mitigation strategies. Even though the outcomes might not seem to be relevant for current economic activities, the recent discussion about oil prices affecting the global economy illustrates the future relevance of this topic; it is just a matter of time before risks related to future oil supply and endowment will emerge. --