Land Directly Controlled: Treated with Pesticides (OI2569)

The IRIS catalog differentiates between land that the organization directly controls and land that the organization indirectly controls. This metric is intended to capture the area of land that is under the organization's direct control and that is treated with pesticides.

Organizations can refer to the glossary for additional information on pesticide use and the WHO’s Acute Toxicity Hazard Categories. Organizations that use WHO Class Ia (extremely hazardous) and Ib (highly hazardous) pesticides on directly controlled land should footnote additional details on the relevant land (for example, area applied and crops present) and pesticide use.

Direct control refers to land for which the organization controls land use through direct operation or management, including situations in which the organization's employees cultivate the land directly. Note that land ownership is not always equivalent to control. For example, where land is leased to another entity or individual to cultivate (e.g., a third-party manager), land is only directly controlled if the lease is accompanied by exhaustive criteria for land use.

Such land-use criteria are often included in management plans and legal agreements that also incorporate sustainability principles and typically include termination provisions in the event of poor performance. To the extent that the third-party manager must make minimal, ad-hoc, and discretionary land-use decisions that fall outside the scope of the land-use criteria, the land may still be considered directly controlled by the organization.