Voluntary market efforts
Across the global feed industry, voluntary market mechanisms can accelerate sustainability efforts. They can preempt regulations, set common expectations, and support collaboration across complex supply chains. They also improve public and policymaker perception. All while generating business resilience.
Setting voluntary industry targets creates a shared ambition and accountability framework across companies, often preempting and/or shaping eventual regulatory requirements.
Critically, by aligning around superior goals (well-paired near-term + long-term goals), they can also help overcome the ‘Accidental Adversary’ dynamic, which can easily derail alliances and initiatives.
Voluntary Market-Based Targets
The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) has developed a Sustainability Charter that establishes collective goals for resource efficiency, circularity, and responsible sourcing in animal food production.
In Belgium, the Belgian Feed Association (BFA) has gone a step further, entering into a formal agreement with its members to produce poultry and pig feed that complies with defined maximum levels for crude protein and phosphorus. By precisely aligning nutrient profiles to animal needs, this voluntary target helps reduce nutrient excretion and related air and water pollution. It also incentivises its members to become more efficient, cutting their costs and farm costs.
These examples demonstrate how the feed industry can self-regulate to achieve sustainability goals while maintaining competitiveness. Voluntary targets also give companies a way to anticipate future legislation, build trust with policymakers, and align with consumer expectations around environmental
responsibility. They also provide benchmarks for feed manufacturers worldwide to improve nutrient efficiency and reduce environmental losses. It is important to remember, however, that if targets are rolled back without good faith efforts to achieve them and set new ambitious, near-term targets, it will rapidly erode trust.
These global initiatives cut environmental impact, demonstrating measurable progress independent of regulatory mandates.
Certification and verification programs are a key market mechanism that strengthen market confidence, demand and premiums.
Voluntary Market-Based Certification
The UK’s Agricultural Industries Confederation has launched the Sustainable Commodities Scheme, a voluntary program that helps feed companies verify sustainable sourcing, especially for soy and palm, and demonstrate compliance with standards like EU and corporate deforestation-free supply chains rules.
In aquaculture, the Global Salmon Initiative offers another strong model, uniting major producers around shared sustainability commitments and transparent certification for feed sourcing, traceability, and emissions reduction. Similarly, GMP+ International has expanded its well-known feed safety certifications to include new sustainability standards.
By participating in these voluntary schemes, feed companies can demonstrate responsible sourcing, meet buyer and regulatory expectations, access premium markets, and strengthen traceability and data collection. Globally, the growth of credible, harmonised certification systems are critical to scaling sustainable feed production.
Voluntary Market-Based Offsets and Credits
Offsets and credit mechanisms are emerging as a practical way for feed companies to address parts of their environmental footprint through voluntary investment.
One notable example is the collective purchase of sustainable soy credits by feed associations and companies across Europe, which supports responsible soy production in South America through the Round Table on Responsible Soy certification system. This collective action model allows companies to offset unsustainable sourcing while simultaneously driving demand for verified sustainable practices at the producer level.
For the global feed industry, voluntary offsets and credits offer an accessible way to participate in sustainability transitions, particularly in regions where direct supply-chain traceability remains complex. They help distribute investment risk, accelerate improvements in key commodities, and signal long-term market demand for sustainable raw materials.
As these systems evolve, the industry is also working to ensure that credits represent real, measurable impact and that they serve as a bridge toward fully traceable, sustainable sourcing rather than a substitute for it.
A Key Driver of Sustainability
Voluntary market mechanisms are vital drivers of sustainability in the global feed industry.
They give companies the flexibility to act ahead of regulation, foster transparency, and demonstrate progress to customers and stakeholders.
More importantly, they encourage cooperation across supply chains and countries, proving that market-based solutions can create tangible, measurable environmental benefits. As the feed sector continues to evolve, voluntary action will remain one of its strongest levers for driving lasting change.