Australian Farm Institute, Media Release, 2 May 2024

A new database has been launched to provide people working in Australian agriculture a clearer view of compliance expectations regarding sustainability and ESG activities.

The Sustainability-related Regulations Database (SR-Database) provides information on current Australian legislation and regulation relevant to the sustainability of the agricultural industry.

Alignment to or compliance with environmental, social and governance metrics will become mandatory for Australian businesses from July. Most Australian agricultural businesses already comply with social and governance sustainability-related expectations thanks to our strong regulatory focus on employment rights, workplace health and safety and fair trading. Some environmental metrics are also captured in legislation such as the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. In many cases, reference to legislation and regulation (rather than production or farm data) can demonstrate compliance with key sustainability indicators and metrics.

This new resource uses the Australian Agricultural Sustainability Framework (AASF) to categorise a collated set of Australian legislation and regulation specifically relevant to the industry’s sustainability status and expectations.

Information in the SR-Database can be filtered by a range of parameters, such as commodity and location, and is transferable to sustainability reporting platforms.

Funded by a Federal Sustainability Reporting Uplift Grant, the SR-Database project has been developed by AFI and More Than Machines, in partnership with the NFF.

The database will undergo continued development until July 2025. Please contact info@farminstitute.org.au to provide your feedback.