Improvements eye round table beef | Farmer

Glacier FarmMedia – The one Canadian Sustainable Beef Roundtable launched online public consultations on proposed changes to its sustainability standards.

This follows consultation with stakeholders as the CRSB concludes its first five years of operation.

Kristine Tapley, chair of CRSB’s Certified Sustainable Beef Framework Committee, said each indicator in the standards for both beef production and primary processing was reviewed to update and improve them, along with identifying gaps.

Why does it matter: The roundtable reviews its sustainability framework after five years of operation.

Standards are used when operations are audited.

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Tapley said a five-year review is part of the organization’s plan.

“Part of the foundation of CRSB is certainly continuous improvement, and so we wanted to build that into the bones of the framework itself to make sure we’re keeping up with the industry and on point,” she said.

Tapley said it’s especially important for a new organization to make sure it enforces standards.
Those who go to the consultation page will see a language change.

“In the beginning there was a lot of language around awareness and bringing sustainability into the industry,” she said.

Now, the tone is being changed to reflect the intention to move to measuring and demonstrating progress towards the indicator’s goals, she said.

“We also really tried to focus on strengthening indicators that aligned with the Canadian beef industry’s 2030 goals,” said Tapley. “There are some things like greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration that align with both production and processing standards.”

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Another would be the goal of maintaining perennial cover.

Tapley said the framework committee works to maintain a balance so that people are willing and able to meet the certification requirements.

The 60-day comment period is ongoing and runs until December 2. There are two separate consultations for production and processing.

“It’s an interesting process in that you can’t just punch holes. For NSF to accept the submission, there has to be a suggested change or a solution offered that is really constructive and I think will be helpful to our process,” she said.
NSF is the third party certificate.

The consultation is the final step in the review process and the results should be published in March.

“I feel like the first phase was to build the ship and create something. We grew so much in those first five years and achieved so much that other standards take a long time to reach,” she said. “Now with this first review, let’s sail the ship.”

– This article was originally published at Western producer.