Guide to Environmental Accounting & Reporting for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Operations

Interests in advancing food security, supply chain stability, and climate adaptation are changing agriculture. Sustainability-focused technologies are being introduced, and inputs into production processes are shifting the use of resources like energy and water. Investors, governments, utilities, and other market actors will make decisions affecting the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) industry’s future, and many of those decisions will relate to the environmental valuation of CEA. As such, CEA producers will increasingly be compelled to report their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance.

The intent of this guide is to propose measurement systems and methodologies and encourage their market adoption as the CEA sector scales and becomes a meaningful part of the agricultural landscape. Through widespread adoption of the approaches cataloged in this guide, the market has a unique opportunity to standardize at an early development stage. 
The guide provides an overview of key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to internal and external audiences, and expressions of industry-relevant carbon emissions accounting. Recommended equations and approaches reflect what is unique about the CEA sector (e.g., lack of use of fertilizers), and build off work done by other sectors on subjects relevant to all facets of the economy (e.g., employee commuting).

Guide to Environmental Accounting & Reporting for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Operations: