Landscape Approaches & Sustainability Frameworks: What actually enables collaboration?
Emerson Sarmiento, Malkie Rothman, Annie Keating, Dominique Mayoux
Last year, Open Rivers, in collaboration with General Mills, sponsored a student-led research project to understand what drives effective collaboration across the food and agricultural ecosystem, and the role that sustainability frameworks play in impacting collaboration and broader adoption of nature-based solutions.
The work brought together interviews with 22 stakeholders, alongside analysis of 15+ major sustainability frameworks and multiple case studies. Through this, we explored what is working, what’s holding efforts back, and the practical lessons for building initiatives that are credible, collaborative, and scalable across food and agriculture stakeholders.
overview
The research set out to understand whether sustainability frameworks could serve as a shared language to align stakeholders and drive broader adoption of nature-based solutions and landscape approaches. What they found is that frameworks aren’t designed to convene, mediate, or sustain collaboration. What actually enables landscape approaches to scale is clear governance, trusted intermediaries, shared incentives, and sustained funding for collaboration.
Companies, NGOs, public agencies, and other actors across the food and agriculture ecosystem have continued to increase investing in nature-based solutions to improve water resilience, reduce deforestation risk, strengthen biodiversity outcomes, and deliver credible progress on environment and nature commitments. According to The Nature Conservancy and Forest Trends, global investment in nature-based solutions for water security alone has doubled over the past decade, reaching $49 billion in 2023.
But scaling these efforts remains difficult. Nature-based commitments are growing while implementation stays fragmented and collaboration remains under-resourced.
The research process combined:
Stakeholder interviews across companies, NGOs, conveners, implementers, and academics
Case studies of landscape and jurisdictional initiatives
A review of major sustainability frameworks informing disclosure and decision-making
In February 2026, Open Rivers, General Mills, and the Bard MBA graduate students hosted a webinar to share these insights in more detail, along with specific examples from the research.
The downloadable resources distill these insights into practical guidance for actors across the food and agriculture ecosystem working to advance nature‑based solutions.