Enhance sustainable farming and fulfil CSR pledges by promoting biodiversity.

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Adding biodiversity to your GLOBALG.A.P. IFA system demonstrates your commitment to biodiversity management practices, environmental protection and customer satisfaction. These are tangible business benefits that play an important part in building resilience and sustainable business performance. 
The GLOBALG.A.P. BioDiversity Add-on sets out rules, principles, and criteria to aid producers in demonstrating their biodiversity management practices. Retailers  may ask suppliers to undertake a BioDiversity Add-on audit to fulfil their own corporate social responsibility pledges.

What is BioDiversity Add-on?

Protecting biodiversity is among the most important challenges facing the agricultural sector and food supply chains. The BioDiversity Add-on is one of the several GLOBALG.A.P. supplementary farm assurance solutions that are designed to complement GLOBALG.A.P. standards for safe and responsible farming. 
Applicable to all types of company holding or seeking GLOBALG.A.P. certification, the Add-on comprises a wide range of criteria that need to be audited along with the relevant IFA audit. 
Producers intending to meet the Add-on’s requirements must establish a biodiversity action plan detailing measures to be implemented over a given timeframe.

The wide range of audit criteria in the BioDiversity Add-on includes:

• The farm’s biodiversity action plan;
• Access to training , knowledge sharing, and farm-specific biodiversity advice;
• Off-farm synergies;
• Areas dedicated to biodiversity;
• Protection and restoration measures;
• Integrated pest management;
• Soil and nutrient management plan;
• Wastewater management and protection of water sources.

Benefits of becoming certified

Checking that your biodiversity action plan meets the requirements is vital. Certification of the BioDiversity Add-on by an independent third-party verifies how your plan is performing and demonstrates your work to apply effective biodiversity protection principles within the organization.

As a result:

• Build trust in your biodiversity protection performance internally and externally by applying effective management principles within the organization.
• Implement a structured approach to continually improving processes and knowing where to focus efforts. 
• Enhance customer confidence and satisfaction, which in turn can lead to increased business.
• Gain a significant competitive advantage by meeting any certification business requirements from customers, in order to conduct business with them.

Getting started

To be certified, you first need to implement an effective action plan complying with the Add-on’s requirements. DNV is an accredited third-party certification body and can help you throughout the journey starting from relevant training to self-assessments, gap analysis and certification services.

Learn more about how to get started on the road to certification.