Get started with landscape initiative maturity

Landscape initiatives bring together multiple stakeholders—such as local communities, businesses, governments, and other key actors—within a defined geographic area to address sustainability challenges like deforestation, biodiversity loss, and livelihoods. Their strength lies in aligning diverse interests around shared goals, actions, and investments to drive long-term resilience at scale.

As landscape and jurisdictional approaches gain recognition as essential tools for building resilient supply chains and mitigating risks, there is a growing need for a common framework to evaluate and strengthen the maturity of these initiatives. A shared understanding of what makes an initiative credible and effective ensures that resources are directed toward those with the highest potential for impact as well as initiatives where targeted support can address gaps and enhance their effectiveness.

Our guidelines provide detailed instructions on how to evaluate initiative maturity using LandScale. Planning ahead and understanding the framework's requirements will help ensure an efficient process and high-quality results.

Understanding landscape initiative maturity

The landscape initiative maturity framework provides a standardized and credible way to evaluate a landscape initiative’s progress, identify strengths and gaps, and guide development toward widely accepted best practices for Integrated Landscape Management. By doing so, it helps enhance the credibility, effectiveness, and impact of landscape initiatives.

Originally based on CDP's Maturity Matrix, the framework was further developed by the ISEAL-convened Landscape Practitioner Network, which introduced specific sub-criteria to improve clarity and ease of implementation. As a result, the framework consists of four core criteria, which are further divided into 12 evaluable sub-criteria.

Refer to the collective position paper webpage to learn more about how the landscape initiative maturity framework was developed.

Once validated by LandScale, maturity evaluation results will be visible on the respective initiative's profile and can be easily shared with supporting organizations. For example, companies disclosing to CDP can reference the profiles of initiatives they support to demonstrate their maturity. Similarly, companies setting Science-Based Targets for Nature must provide details on the maturity of any initiative they engage with as part of their Landscape Engagement target.

By completing a LandScale profile and evaluating their maturity, initiatives not only gain visibility and credibility but also receive structured feedback from the LandScale team, highlighting where further development is needed.

Evaluate landscape initiative maturity

To evaluate their maturity, landscape initiatives must respond to the relevant questions for each sub-criteria they aim to meet. Once the required information and supporting documentation are uploaded to the LandScale platform and submitted for validation, LandScale validators will review the submission to confirm the extent to which sub-criteria have been credibly met. Upon validation, the results will be published on the initiative’s profile.

By evaluating and validating their maturity with LandScale, landscape initiatives can:

Showcase progress to key stakeholders, including supply chain companies, donors, and investors.
Identify areas for growth, highlighting where additional support and resources could further strengthen the initiative.
Increase credibility and transparency, making it easier for companies and organizations to engage with and support the initiative.

By completing this process, landscape initiatives gain structured feedback on their current maturity level and areas for further development, ensuring they continue to progress toward long-term sustainability and impact.

Review how to complete the evaluation for a step-by-step guide on navigating the evaluation process on the LandScale platform.

Explore each core criterion's requirements

Review the full landscape initiative maturity framework, learn how maturity progress levels are assigned, and explore each core criterion to understand its sub-criteria and the information LandScale requires for validation.