Flowers and plants are produced and sold around the word and move through a global supply chain, starting from a cutting or young plant stage, to a stage in which it grows roots and finally to the grower stage, where it grows into the plant which eventually gets sold. Crop protection agents are used throughout this global supply chain, and growers do not always know which product has been used earlier on in the chain.

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The Chain Transparency project, funded by IDH and facilitated by FSI, followed the plant production process of 22 companies between 2016 and 2019, making information of crop protection agent usage of the supply chain available by collectively taking samples of the products, recording and analysing data, and identifying best practices for responsible crop protection agent usage. By doing so, the project partners created more knowledge of the use of crop protection agents as well as a collaborative commitment on practical solutions to improve.

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Communication throughout the chain is crucial to coordinate the use of crop protection products and thus optimise and ultimately reduce the usage. MPS developed together with the participants of the Chain Transparency 2.0 project a simple tool: the ‘mapping tool’. This is an instruction for parties in the whole supply chain (from producer of propagation material till the market) how to map their supply chain.

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Why is this important? By doing so producers meet market demands, optimise IPM programmes, there will be a reduction of crop protection agents, the whole chain becomes more transparent resulting in overall risk reduction. Sometimes it is not clear how a CPA ended on a product. MPS analysed ‘indirect routes’ like drift and made a visual to inform growers how they also can reduce this risk.

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Next to increased transparency and communication throughout the chain, the objective of the project has been to reduce the use of crop protection agents. Through its activities, the project resulted in substantial reductions of crop protection agent usage volume on the participating companies, with an average reduction of 45%, and even a 64% reduction for the group of crop protection agents active ingredients with a high potential risk for environment. The average reduction of crop protection agent usage volume translates to an environmental impact reduction of 47% per hectare on which the crop protection agents were used. This is substantial even compared to the combined records of 1,818 floriculture companies that are certified to the MPS-ABC environmental standard, which demonstrate a positive but nonetheless lower reduction of the environmental impact of 14% in the same period.

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The Chain Transparency Project leads to several long-term benefits, which range from increased transparency and alignment with societal expectations, to healthier working conditions and improved environmental impact. The insights from the project will be translated into responsible crop protection agent strategies which can be used by the whole floriculture sector, and potentially other sectors, to reduce environmental impact.
Please see the factsheet for a more detailed overview of the results of the Chain Transparency 2.0 project.

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The approach taken in the Chain Transparency 2.0 project builds on the flower sector’s movement towards improved data management and transparency to enable more sustainability. Whereas in the past, data would capture how much of a crop protection agent’s active ingredient was used per hectare without translating that into local impact on the environment, CPA data of flower companies under the Chain Transparency project is directly transformed into environmental impact classifications. This is done by including risk factors in the data analysis, allowing companies to consider environmental factors, substance properties and emission reduction measures.

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This advancement in environmental impact assessments contributes to efforts of developing an environmental impact indicator and aligns well with the FSI approach and strategy. FSI has recently developed environmental benchmarking criteria for the FSI basket of standards. This new basket aligns sustainability standards to align on digital record keeping on use of crop protection agents, fertiliser, water and energy. FSI is furthermore in the closing stage of the development of their 2025 strategy which, amongst other things, will focus on data management and environmental footprinting to reduce the environmental impact of FSI members.

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The Chain Transparency 2.0 project has several initiating parties who painted a picture about transparency in the chain and in which way they are involved. Watch Chain Transparency 2.0 below:

The Chain Transparency project of FSI and MPS
Chain Transparency Project Koppert Biologicals
Transparency in the international supply chain
Chain Transparency according to Dutch Flower Group

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