Please choose a Metric:
Amount of contamination, waste or pollutants generated, discharged to and/or removed/diverted from land or soil, by type
Type
Related framework / metric
TNFD: A2.1, A2.2, C2.0, C2.2, C2.3, FA.C23.0, FA.A2.0, FA.A2.2, FA.A23.0, FA.A5.4
Units
Example target
Example methods / guidance / references
What are tiers?
Tier 1
Estimate using own judgement and observations
Tier 2
Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data
Tier 3
Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.
Example data sources
Internal records
Third-party data sources
Site-specific measurements or model outputs
Notes
Amounts generated, discharged and removed/diverted may be recorded separately. ‘Generated’ may be interpreted as directly produced, or indirectly produced by creating demand through consumption or use, as applicable. Note that what is considered to be a contaminant, waste or pollutant may depend on the context – for example, certain levels of application of nitrogen and phosporus may be regarded as beneficial in an agricultural context, whereas the same could be regarded as pollutants at higher levels of application, or in a different context (such as a naturally low-nutrient ecosystem).
Variants of this metric include TNFD core disclosure metrics C2.0: “Pollutants released to soil (tonnes) by type, referring to sector-specific guidance on types of pollutants”, C2.2: “Weight of hazardous and nonhazardous waste generated by type (tonnes), referring to sector-specific guidance for types of waste. Weight of hazardous and nonhazardous waste (tonnes) disposed of, split into:
- Waste incinerated (with and without energy recovery);
- Waste sent to landfill; and
- Other disposal methods. Weight of hazardous and nonhazardous waste (tonnes) diverted from landfill, split into waste:
- Reused;
- Recycled; and
- Other recovery operations.”;
C2.3: “Plastic footprint as measured by total weight (tonnes) of plastics (polymers, durable goods and packaging) used or sold broken down into the raw material content. For plastic packaging, percentage of plastics that is:
- Re-usable;
- Compostable;
- Technically recyclable; and
- Recyclable in practice and at scale.
Raw material content: % of virgin fossil-fuel feedstock; % of post-consumer recycled feedstock; % of post-industrial recycled feedstock; % of virgin renewable feedstock.”; Food and agriculture core disclosure metric FA.C23.0: “Proportion (%) of food waste repurposed into by-products and/or co-products.”; additional disclosure metrics A2.1: “Reduction in waste generated relative to baseline as a result of technological or process changes (tonnes)” and A2.2: “Volume of pollutants removed from land, atmosphere, ocean and freshwater (tonnes).”; and Food and agriculture additional disclosure metrics FA.A2.0: “Food loss and/or waste as a proportion of total food produced/ handled (%).
Proportion of food loss and/or waste diverted from landfill (%).”; FA.A2.2: “Weight (tonnes) of non-plastic packaging (primary, secondary and tertiary packaging) for food products by entity by packaging type.”; FA.A23.0: “Proportion (%) of total sourced and purchased non-plastic packaging made from 1) recycled materials, 2) renewable materials, 3) compostable materials. For each material used, proportion (%) that is recycled, reused and composted according to local laws and regulations.” and FA.A5.4: “Volume (kg) and concentration (kg/m3) of pesticides, by pesticide and toxicity level (1, 8, 16 and 64 for low risk, normal, more hazardous and non-approved substances).”
Type
Related framework / metric
TNFD: FA.A2.1
Units
Example target
Example methods / guidance / references
What are tiers?
Tier 1
Estimate using own judgement and observations
For example, estimate from purchase and/or application records.
Tier 2
Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data
Tier 3
Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.
For example, measure using machine sensing data.
Example data sources
Internal records
Third-party data sources
Site-specific measurements or model outputs
Notes
This metric only reflects one aspect of the impacts of fertiliser use, i.e. the consumption of natural resources such as potash and fossil fuels. Other potential impacts, e.g. on water quality and greenhouse gas emissions, are considered under those headings.
Note that TNFD core global disclosure metric C2.0 “Pollutants released to soil (tonnes) by type, referring to sector-specific guidance on types of pollutants”, which is aligned with NCMC metric “Contamination and waste“, is interpreted as including nitrogen, phosphorus, and, where relevant, potassium and other nutrients (e.g. micronutrients) for Agricultural products; Meat, poultry and dairy industries. However, many fertilisers and soil ameliorants are based on non-renewable natural resources and therefore have an impact on natural capital through the depletion of these environmental assets, regardless of whether they may then become pollutants if applied in excess to ecosystem requirements. Therefore it can be helpful to measure fertiliser and soil ameliorant use as a separate impact metric to the release of pollutants to soil (NCMC “Contamination and waste” metric).
Variants of this metric include TNFD. Food and agriculture additional disclosure metric FA.A2.1: “Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), ratio of total N inputs and total N outputs to produce a crop, animal product or agrifood product.”
Type
Related framework / metric
TNFD: FA.A4.1, FA.3.0
Units
Example target
Example methods / guidance / references
What are tiers?
Tier 1
Estimate using own judgement and observations
Tier 2
Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data
Tier 3
Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.
Example data sources
Internal records
Third-party data sources
Site-specific measurements or model outputs
Notes
Note that this metric is the inverse of what is commonly termed ‘yield’ (mass of product output per unit area of land).
Variants of this metric include TNFD. Food and agriculture additional disclosure metric FA.A4.1: “Land use efficiency (ha land/kg of product).” and FA.A3.0: “Actual and potential yield (kg/km2), and yield gap, by type of crop.”
Type
Related framework / metric
TNFD: FA.A5.2, FA.A5.5, FA.A5.6, FA.A5.7
Units
Example target
Example methods / guidance / references
What are tiers?
Tier 1
Estimate using own judgement and observations
Tier 2
Estimate using third-party professional estimates or public data
Tier 3
Model or measure based on site-specific surveys/sampling, remote or in-field sensing, laboratory analysis, etc.
Example data sources
Internal records
Third-party data sources
Maps of various spatially modelled Australian soil variables are available at the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia – Soil and Landscape Grid Viewer
Maps of various spatially modelled and measured Australian soil variables are available at Visualising Australasia’s Soils (VAS)
Site-specific measurements or model outputs
Data on various spatially modelled Australian soil variables are available at the Soil and Landscape Grid of Australia – Get the Data.
Data on various measured Australian soil variables (obtained from various state and national data sources) are available at SoilDataFederator.
Data on various measured Australian soil variables are available at the Australian National Soil Information System (ANSIS) Data Portal.
Notes
This measure may be derived from ecosystem asset condition accounts (see Ecosystem assets). Relevant soil quality variables may include any of the physical, chemical or biological characteristics of soils that enable soils to provide ecosystem services. Impacts on soil quality may also be measured indirectly, e.g. by using % bare ground or % productive land with retained stubble as a proxy for exposure of soils to erosion and/or loss of nutrients.
Variants of this metric include TNFD. Food and agriculture additional disclosure metrics FA.A5.2: “Proportion (%) of land with soil degradation in the total area of agricultural production, including soil erosion, reduction in soil fertility, salinisation of irrigated lands and waterlogging.”; FA.A5.5: “Antimicrobial residue in the soil (nano/milligrams per kilogram of soil).”; FA.A5.6: “Soil bulk density, measured as the ratio of a soil’s dry mass and its volume (g/cm3).” and FA.A5.7: “Soil organic carbon (tC).”