The Regenerative Production Landscape Collaboratives (RPLC) are a multi-stakeholder initiative launched in 2021 and convened by Laudes Foundation. It brings together local implementers, communities, businesses, and governments to reimagine how people, nature, and the economy can align within landscapes.
Today, the RPLC cover 1 million hectares of land with the goal to convert 50 million hectares of land into regenerative production landscapes by 2035. The RPLC are implemented by partners such as IDH, WWF, and GIZ, who bring together stakeholders to create pathways for regenerating landscapes in Brazil, India, Pakistan, and Tanzania. Quantis intervened as a scientific and technical partner to co-develop an MRV framework to support regenerative projects.
Challenge
The Regenerative Production Landscape Collaborative (RPLC) is an innovative jurisdictional model, producing a variety of crops for local and global food and fashion value chains and promoting agricultural ecosystems which conserve natural resources, strengthen community resilience, and enable responsible sourcing. To attract sourcing activities and investment, initiatives must be able to show credible and robust results grounded in science-based data. Many face a “chicken-and-egg” dilemma: investors request robust data, while landscapes often need financing to begin collecting it. Limited early-stage funding can leave regenerative agriculture programs stuck at the pilot stage.
Implementers also need clarity on which indicators matter most to companies and investors, and which are the most impactful to drive sustainable transformation in landscapes. Recognizing this gap, Laudes Foundation supported a project in 2023 to co-develop a common framework that could bring consistency to measurement of regenerative agriculture outcomes while respecting differences across each RPLC in Brazil, India, Pakistan, and Tanzania.
Solutions
The Regenerative Production Landscape Collaboratives and Quantis co-developed a Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) Framework over an 18-month multi-stakeholder process, with additional support from ISEAL on claims and communications, and Palladium on financing.
What the MRV Framework delivers:
- Outcome indicators and guidance on five impact areas: greenhouse gas emissions, soil health, water, biodiversity, and livelihoods
- Standards-aligned framework: informed by the GHG Protocol LSRG draft, WBCSD/OP2B business guidance for deeper regeneration, Textile Exchange regenerative agriculture outcome platform, SBTN guidance, among others, and additional scientific research
- Flexibility: accommodates varying levels of data maturity while remaining practical to implement
- Versatility: designed to be applicable across crop value chains, reflecting the diversity of crops in RPLC landscapes (e.g. cotton, soy, maize)
- Business-aligned framework: integrates outcomes of discussions with selected brands and aligned with corporate reporting needs
The framework was tested across the four landscapes through a data collection trial, with early adoption already underway, confirming its feasibility and supporting the transition from concept to implementation.
Results
The MRV framework now provides a shared foundation that brings consistency to measurement while respecting the diversity of each RPLC. As Litul Baruah, Senior Programme Manager at Laudes, highlighted, enabling scale means creating the conditions for others to act and the framework does exactly that by helping align partners, build credibility, and mobilize the investment needed to transition landscapes at scale.
Key outcomes:
- A common structure across regions aligns the RPLC around the same MRV framework principles, and the same notions
- With the MRV framework in place, the RPLC are now taking the relay to develop the financing mechanisms that will help mobilize investment and scale the RPLC across landscapes
“Given the different contexts and levels of maturity across the RPLCs, having a common way to measure progress at landscape level is complex. This work helped bring us together to align on what matters and co-develop a framework that is both scientifically robust and adaptable to the local realities we face here in Tanzania.”
– Hendrik Buermann, Project director of the Regenerative Production Landscape Collaborative – GIZ
