Putting Together a Measure of Sustainability

Feb 28, 2023

With companies now publishing sustainability reports annually, you may wonder how these reports are put together.

The word sustainability is popping up everywhere these days it seems. Companies are constantly releasing information on how they plan to be more sustainable. These plans are mainly released in the forms of reports, and there’s now a whole industry focused on helping those reports to be made.

“Sustainability issues are so complex and intertwined. For example soil, water stewardship, carbon and the volume of potato a farmer can grow. All of those sustainability issues really overlap with each other — they’re all interconnected,” Emma Bedlington, manager at Stratos, said during a presentation at Manitoba Potato Production Days on Jan. 25, 2023.

Traditionally, companies have made annual reports, and in these reports they’ll outline their profits and losses. Recently though, these reports have started to include more external information that’s not directly related to financials, she added. Companies will now talk about some of their social programs, or their company governance — these are all environmental, social and governance issues and are called ESG

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Video: Root Exudates, Soil Biology, and How Plants Recruit Microbes | Field Talk Friday

Field Talk Friday | Dr. John Murphy | Root Exudates, Soil Biology, and How Plants Recruit Microbes

Most of us spend our time managing what we can see above ground—plant height, leaf color, stand counts, and yield potential. But the deeper you dig into agronomy, the more you realize that some of the most important processes driving crop performance are happening just millimeters below the surface.

In this episode of Field Talk Friday, Dr. John Murphy continues the soil biology series by diving into one of the most fascinating topics in modern agronomy: root exudates and the role they play in shaping the microbial world around plant roots.

Roots are not passive structures simply pulling nutrients out of the soil. They are active participants in the underground ecosystem. Plants constantly release compounds into the soil—sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and other molecules—that act as both energy sources and signals for soil microbes.