Building Sustainable Value Chains in Agriculture and Food

Global food systems are often based on exploitative mechanisms that are detrimental to people and nature. Underpaid farmers, climate damage, biodiversity loss, and human rights risks are embedded in the value chains of many agri-food businesses, and increasingly, attention is being paid to these violations. 

Impact Institute works with agri-food companies, NGOs, and government bodies to measure, manage, and improve the social and environmental impact of food and agriculture value chains. 

Our work builds over 12 years of experience in impact measurement across social, environmental, and economic dimensions. Allowing you to translate complex impact data into decisions that strengthen both business performance and create more resilient agri-food systems.

Our services

Impact management and implementation

We integrate impact data into governance, risk management, and day-to-day decisions. We help you steer procurement, sourcing, product design, and investments in agriculture based on quantified social and environmental value. This gives finance and sustainability teams a shared foundation for decision-making, rather than parallel workstreams. 

This is achieved through impact cases which are targeted analyses of specific projects or supply chain interventions that show the full value created and destroyed. Helping you monetise impacts across workers, farmers, communities, and the environment, and are used to construct business cases for changing sourcing models, paying higher prices to suppliers, or investing in farmer support programmes. 

Food system transition impact institute

Impact measurement and reporting

Measurement is only useful if it informs direction. We support organisations in defining an impact strategy for their agri-food activities, aligning impact goals with business objectives. We help organisations identify which impacts are most material, set targets, and embed impact considerations into corporate and value chain strategy over time. 

Using tools such as the True Price Scan, we measure the social and environmental impacts of agri-food value chains in monetary terms. True pricing quantifies the external social and environmental costs embedded in food products achieved through impact materiality analyses, value chain mapping and collecting data. 

Our work includes: 

  • Annual reporting 
  • Living income assessment & True Price 
  • Portfolio and sector reporting 
  • Financial reporting, e.g. at fund level  

Impact journey and strategy

Assigning monetary value to social and environmental impact, our projects focus on bridging the gap between sustainability and finance departments, enabling holistic decision-making and building future-proof business models. We cover the full impact journey, from first measurement through to strategy, implementation, and reporting.

Nature vision and action plan

We translate impact insights into structured action plans that show how agri-food organisations can move toward more sustainable and regenerative practices while maintaining business viability. 

This includes developing a vision for supply chains through biodiversity footprinting tools and scenario analysis, and connecting it to climate and food system pathways. 

True Profit Alliance and impact-based indicators

Impact Institute contributes to the True Price and True Profits by developing methods, publications, and indicators in partnership with foundations and research institutes. Through these collaborations, we help define impact-based indicators for health, environment, and social conditions in agri-food systems, developing sector-wide alliances.

Priority areas

 Biodiversity and soil health

We consider biodiversity and soil health in all our food system transition work. We also pay attention to land and water use, themes around agri-food and regenerative farming. Read more on how we safeguard biodiversity in our work on our Biodiversity Knowledge Base.

Sustainable protein acceleration

Whilst meat and dairy play a major role in diets, they come with social and environmental costs. Exploring dietary shifts and accelerating alternative proteins is crucial for the food system transition. We specialise in impact assessments on the protein transition, we are involved in the EU funded Like-a-Pro project and assessed the costs to society of animal sourced foods in the EU.

Partnerships & Clients

Partnerships in the food system transition

The True Value of Food Initiative (TVFI) was launched at the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) in 2021 by, among other stakeholders, Impact Institute, True Price Foundation and the UNFSS Scientific Group, and is allied to the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub.

The main objective is to unlock the potential of the True Value of Food for governments, businesses, investors, and consumers by providing them with a new economic basis for decision-making for the food system transition.

The Global Partnership on True Price of Food (GPTPF) enables actors in the food sector to embrace and apply true pricing on a large scale. The goal is to provide governments and businesses with the tools they need to make healthy, sustainable, and affordable food available for all through true pricing. 
 

“Impact Institute succeeds in making impact tangible through strong figures, graphs and images”

“Impact Institute delivers thorough work and is able to translate complex subject matter in a clear way. They succeed in making impact tangible through strong figures, graphs and images. They adapt to client requests and unforeseen circumstances. All this in a highly constructive and pleasant atmosphere. We will work with the (new) insights to increase our impact.”

Karen Janssens
Expert Sustainable Sourcing

Work With Us

Whether you are measuring your value chain impact for the first time, developing a nature vision for your supply base, or building the business case for a sourcing model that is better for farmers and better for your business, we are ready to help. 

Get in touch to discuss how Impact Institute can support your agriculture and food strategy. 

Publications

  • Living income assessment of ivorian cocoa farmers

    Fairtrade International wanted to measure farmer household income and living income of Fairtrade certified cocoa farmers. 

    Download
  • External costs of animal sourced food in the EU

    Commissioned by Eurogroup for Animals, this study is on the externalities attributed to current value chains of EU production and…

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  • Valuing the hidden costs in palm oil production

    Report by True Price, Trucost and RSPO, commissioned by UNEP Teeb Creating a methodology to improve strategy for a sustainable…

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  • Zeeman CSR Report

    Zeeman 2023 Corporate Social Responsibility (MVO) Report

    The Report demonstrates Zeemans’ transition to making their assortment and organisation more sustainable.

    Download

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