Welcome to the ProTerra Standard V5.0 training course!
In the next few days, we will take an in-depth look at the ProTerra Standard on Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability, version 5.0.
Please read through the following text/pages that you will be guided on the activities of the course. As part of today’s activity please review the Introduction and Overview of this course that will be presented below.
Introduction
ProTerra Foundation is a non-for-profit organisation that envisages a world where all businesses contribute to the protection of biodiversity by switching to sustainable production, conserving natural resources, and ensuring that workers and local communities are treated with dignity and respect.
The ProTerra Foundation owns the ProTerra Certification Standard and related documents and audit methodology.
The ProTerra Foundation’s mission is to be a global network of businesses supporting more sustainable agricultural practices, in the food and feed supply chains, where relevant the conversion to non-GMOs and full respect of workers and communities’ dignity.
We envisage a world where all businesses contribute to the protection of biodiversity by switching to sustainable production, conserving natural resources, and ensuring that local communities are treated with dignity and respect.
The ProTerra Certification Standard is organised in principles, criteria, and indicators. These are the ProTerra Standard ten principles:
- PRINCIPLE 1: Management system, Compliance with laws, international conventions, and the ProTerra Standard
- PRINCIPLE 2: Human rights and responsible labour policies and practices
- PRINCIPLE 3: Responsible relations with workers and community
- PRINCIPLE 4: Biodiversity conservation, effective environmental management, and environmental services
- PRINCIPLE 5: No use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
- PRINCIPLE 6: Pollution and waste management
- PRINCIPLE 7: Water management
- PRINCIPLE 8: Greenhouse gases and energy management
- PRINCIPLE 9: Adoption of good agricultural practices
- PRINCIPLE 10: Traceability and Chain of Custody
Organisations become ProTerra certified by demonstrating compliance with each of the Standard´s principles, criteria, and indicators applicable to their business.
The ProTerra v5.0 training
ProTerra audits take place in many regions of the world, and since social, economic, and environmental factors are complex and country-specific, we rely on the expertise and language skills of local auditors to capture this complexity. The recent emergence of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), is shifting the paradigm of the educational experience, making it possible to reach a greater number of qualified auditors. Because of this, we can interact on a scale previously impossible due to technical limitations.
We have structured this learning tool to emphasize communication among you and your classmates, and between you and us, via distance learning. An important part of the learning will take place in the forums, where you will post your thoughts and ideas and respond to those of others. If you have expertise in a specific topic, we want to hear from you.
Food plays a key role in our lives, and we all want food that is healthy, tasty, available, affordable, and environmentally and socially responsible – in a word, sustainable. Meeting future demand for feeding our growing population, and doing so sustainably, forces us to make difficult choices both as individuals and as a society. The ProTerra Standard program responds to the growing demand for sustainable products (feed and food produced according to higher standards of ethics, social responsibility, and environmental protection).
This course takes approximately 5 days. Participants are expected to take on average 3 hours a day to be able to complete the course within the 5 days. However, the course will be open for 2 weeks.
It is important to emphasise that this course is designed to be taken step by step to ensure thorough understanding and participation by all students. Each lesson must be marked as completed and at the end of each day, students must confirm that the day’s curriculum has been completed before moving on to the next day’s content.
Reading materials containing technical information to support the learning process will be provided. These materials are mandatory for all participants. Daily reference documents can be accessed in the separate ‘Materials’ section at the top of the page.
Although all days and corresponding course material will open and will remain available for two weeks, participants are requested to take activities in sequence to try to all participate in the same activities at around the same period (5 consecutive days). This permits a greater collaboration between participants and the course supervisor can better support the participants and respond to questions and discussions.
The best way to complete this course is simply to start at the top of each day’s page and work your way down. The daily activities are explained in detail at the start of every new course day.
Please begin in the Introduction forum by telling us about yourself and getting acquainted with your classmates.
If you have questions about the training platform or find problems using it, please get in touch with us by using the technical issues forum button below or send an email to info@proterrafoundation.org.
