Event recap: Inaugural Meeting of the Technical Stakeholder Committee – Agri-Food and Feed
Yesterday afternoon, we successfully hosted our inaugural conference dedicated to the agriculture sector and the Food and Feed sector, marking an important milestone in bringing together stakeholders from across the value chain to exchange insights on policy developments, market trends, and the growing role of certification in sustainable agriculture.
ISCC’sperspectiveand the story so far
The event opened with welcoming remarks from Dr Jan Henke, Director of ISCC System and Meo Carbon Solutions, who gave an overview of ISCC’s multi-stakeholder approach, emphasising the role it has had in the success of our certification system. Jan outlined ISCC’s aim to grow our presence in the agricultural sector with this new committee, highlighting the importance of collaboration and innovation in addressing the sector’s complex sustainability challenges.
Anneke Voß, Senior System Manager at ISCC, followed up with a comprehensive overview of the Agriculture and Food & Feed sector within ISCC, with particular focus on our flagship schemes, ISCC EU and ISCC PLUS. She noted that we have over 1,800 certificates for Farms and First Gathering Points and pointed to the fact that farmers and their community are the cornerstone for agricultural raw material entering our diverse value chains. Anneke further highlighted that the farming community is responsible for implementing ISCC’s six sustainability principles, the foundation of our certification system. She also presented ISCC PLUS for Food and Feed, a growing certification market where we see a growing interest from the sector for certified sustainable products.
In closing, Anneke also announced the launch of the ISCC Regenerative Agriculture add-on, launching in May 2026, and the development of a product carbon footprint certification for the agriculture sector.
Regulatory updates from theEuropean Commission
We gained valuable policy insights from Antonia Lütteken, Policy Officer at DG Agriculture and Rural Development at the European Commission, who presented the current status of sustainable agricultural initiatives, highlighting that 61% of the EU’s farmland is covered by agricultural environmental commitments.
She told the committee that the EU Commission’s proposal published last summer for the future EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), planned for 2028, aims to protect Sustainability and Resilience in Farming. Elaborating, she gave an overview of the CAP’s future “toolbox”, framed by an approach that shifts away from conditions for farmers towards incentives designed to empower them. This would include a new co-financing approach for agri-environmental actions. She also discussed the Do No Significant Harm (DNSH) principle in the CAP, with guidance expected by the end of 2026.
This was complemented by Emanuele Paolo Sicuro from DG CLIMA, European Commission, who provided an engaging overview of the three pillars of Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming (CRCF) framework and its implications for scaling carbon farming and integrating it into emerging markets.
These three pillars are: EU certification methodologies, with a focus on implementation; the certification process, explaining how the commission will recognise certification schemes under the CRCF; and, thirdly, certification registries that bring together sellers and buyers. Presenting an overview of the CRCF regulation timeline, he noted that the first projects are projected to start as early as 2027, with the EU registry in place by 2028.
Industryinsights
Industry leaders offered practical perspectives on sustainability in action. Lourenço Nunes from Nestlé explored how brands can leverage ISCC certification to deliver on their sustainability goals, emphasising the reliability, adaptability, and protection against greenwashing claims as the key benefits of our certification.
Dessislava Barzachka, Sustainability Execution Manager Europe and Asia, from Bunge, shared hands-on experience from supporting the development of ISCC’s Regenerative Agriculture Add-On and key lessons learned from implementation. She talked about the raw materials covered in Europe (sunflower and rapeseed) Brazil (soybean and wheat) and North America (canola and corn); the environmental and food security benefits of our science-based framework for the Regenerative Agriculture add-on; and highlighted how the adoption of regenerative agriculture unlocks value for farmers, in opening them up to future income opportunities in a decarbonised agricultural sector.
Voices from the field: Farmers and industry advocates
From the Deutscher Verband Tiernahrung (German association of Animal Feed), Judith Wagner outlined how harmonised methodologies such as the EU’s (Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules) PEFCR framework enable consistent, science-based measurement of environmental impacts along the feed value chain, supported by robust data sources like the Global Feed Life Cycle Assessment Institute (GFLI) database. She highlighted the importance of high-quality, regularly updated data and transparent rules to ensure comparability and credibility of results. The discussion also underlined that achieving reliable, value chain-wide emissions accounting requires strong certification systems to ensure data integrity and enable trusted external verification.
Adding a valuable on-the-ground perspective, Elia Pellegrino, Co-Owner of Pellegrino 1890, illustrated how ISCC PLUS certification supports farmers like him in advancing sustainable practices while maintaining economic viability.
Future outlook andelectionof our co-chairs
Looking ahead, Dr Katharina Heidrich, Senior System Manager at ISCC, introduced ongoing efforts to further streamline and improve practicality in ISCC’s sustainability requirements through the P2–P6 review, while maintaining our system’s integrity and ensuring alignment with the new CAP (2028–2034) and announced the launch of a dedicated Working Group.
The conference concluded with an interactive discussion session, fostering an open exchange of ideas and reinforcing the importance of stakeholder collaboration. Katharina asked participants to vote on the pain points across different perspectives in the agricultural sector to help ISCC better understand how we can better support our stakeholders. Support with navigating EU regulations and the development of a unified mass balance and verified GHG footprint calculations were highly requested.
During the governance segment, participants elected the committee co-chairs Dessislava Barzachka, Sustainability Execution Manager Europe and Asia, Bunge, and Jennifer Aurandt-Pilgrim, VP of Innovation, Marquis Management Inc., and discussed the future structure and naming of the committee, to be confirmed in collaboration with our newly elected co-chairs.
In closing, ISCC outlined the next steps and reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the transition towards more sustainable, transparent, and resilient agriculture, food, and feed supply chains. The strong engagement throughout the event highlighted the sector’s momentum and the shared ambition to drive meaningful progress.
Thank you to everyone who attended yesterday’s meeting and supported in the organisation. We look forward to our next meeting already!
Looking for more details on a particular topic or speaker? Download the event presentations here.
