LEAF Mar­que

LEAF Mar­que is an envi­ron­men­tal assur­ance sys­tem recog­nis­ing sus­tain­able farmed prod­ucts. Here we take a look at the lat­est ver­sion of the LEAF Mar­que Stan­dard and the process of stan­dard setting.

Are you on the jour­ney to becom­ing LEAF Mar­que cer­ti­fied and need help and guid­ance? Vis­it our Help Cen­tre for a range of resources, instruc­tions and doc­u­ments to sup­port you along the way.

In 2012, when LEAF estab­lished its mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion pro­gramme, we start­ed pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion about our impacts, growth and the eco­nom­ic, envi­ron­men­tal and social ben­e­fits of achiev­ing and main­tain­ing LEAF Mar­que cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. We con­tin­ue to build on that work which helps pro­vide the sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion for the trans­par­ent and impar­tial eval­u­a­tion of LEAF’s effec­tive­ness in deliv­er­ing our mis­sion and vision.

This is to enable Defra to review LEAF Mar­que data to assess it’s rel­e­vance to Earned Recog­ni­tion, as part of an ongo­ing work­ing group that inves­ti­gates this. The inten­tion of Earned Recog­ni­tion is to enhance effi­cien­cy by recog­nis­ing cross-over between the top­ics cov­ered by assur­ance sys­tems, and top­ics of inter­est to Defra reg­u­la­tion and enforcement. 

Assess­ing the effec­tive­ness of LEAF Mar­que cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and gain­ing an insight into how it is advanc­ing envi­ron­men­tal change, is cru­cial for the con­tin­u­ous improve­ment of our stan­dards, this is why LEAF invests in inde­pen­dent mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion. Read more about our lat­est inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tion into LEAF Marque.

From Wednes­day 25^th March, the require­ment for on-site LEAF Mar­que audits was tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed in recog­ni­tion that coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pre­vent­ed the safe deliv­ery of on-site audits.

LEAF Mar­que will com­mence remote assess­ments from the 1^st May 2020.

An insight into the effect and impact of LEAF Mar­que cer­ti­fi­ca­tion inthe deliv­ery of more sus­tain­able farming. 

Through our mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion and talk­ing to our pro­duc­ers we are see­ing real com­mit­ment in safe­guard­ing our pre­cious nat­ur­al resources, reachin­gout to their cus­tomers and con­tin­u­al­ly assess­ing and adapt­ing their farm­ing­prac­tices. We are huge­ly proud of what they have achieved. Togeth­er with thede­ter­mi­na­tion of the sup­ply chain to sup­port for­ward think­ing farm­ers andraise con­sumer aware­ness of sus­tain­able issues, we are mak­ing real and last­ingdif­fer­ences to the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the world’s food and farm­ing systems. 

We look at how LEAF the char­i­ty and LEAF Mar­que is man­aged, includ­ing the set­ting of the stan­dard, deci­sion mak­ing process, stake­hold­er engage­ment, LEAF Pub­lic Sys­tem Reports, LEAF Mar­que indi­ca­tors, a list of IFM research papers / case stud­ies and oth­er gov­er­nance matters.

Learn about how we set the LEAF Mar­que Stan­dard, with reg­u­lar con­sul­ta­tions and revi­sions to ensure the stan­dard is a robust and cred­i­ble system.

Claims & Labelling will be effec­tive from the 1^st Jan­u­ary 2020. This is a mech­a­nism to ensure robust­ness of the LEAF Mar­que Sys­tem by reg­u­lat­ing the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion claims that are made. Claims & Labelling replaces Chain of Cus­tody, the require­ments for which have been removed from the LEAF Mar­que Stan­dard v15.0.

Your feed­back is impor­tant to LEAF to ensure that we con­tin­ue to improve the ser­vices we offer. LEAF will review and take any appro­pri­ate cor­rec­tive action to the stan­dards sys­tem or assur­ance require­ments, when necessary.

Here you can find many use­ful doc­u­ments and arti­cles about LEAF Marque. 

Every few years we review the LEAF Mar­que Stan­dard to ensure it remains rel­e­vant. As indus­try prac­tices and sci­en­tif­ic under­stand­ing evolve over time, so our Stan­dard needs to evolve too. Our Stan­dard review is pub­lic and con­sis­tent with best prac­tice codes and guide­lines pro­vid­ed by ISEAL.