What Is an ESG Rating?
An ESG rating measures a company's exposure to long-term environmental, social, and governance risks. These risks — involving issues such as energy efficiency, worker safety, and board independence — have financial implications. But they are often not highlighted during traditional financial reviews. Investors who use ESG ratings to supplement financial analysis can gain a broader view of a company's long-term potential.
How do MSCI ESG Ratings work?
ESG risks and opportunities can vary by industry and company. Our MSCI ESG Ratings model identifies the ESG risks, (what we call Key Issues), that are most material to a UV Sustainability sub-industry or sector. With over 13 years of live track history we have been able to examine and refine our model to identify the E, S, and G Key Issues which are most material to an industry.
A food forest is a sustainable way of producing plant-based food that requires minimal maintenance. It mimics a natural forest setting by incorporating various trees, shrubs, vines, herbs and more.
Sometimes a food forest is also referred to as a forest garden.
Think of a time that you went for a walk in a forest. Now imagine that every plant around you was edible. That’s basically what a food forest tries to achieve.
Just like forests in nature, the food forest or forest garden doesn’t need humans to fertilize, weed or deal with pests. It’s a fully enclosed ecosystem designed so it can take care of almost everything on its own.
Permaculture is all about approaching land management in ways that are more aligned with nature. A monoculture crop is the most out of tune with nature and the furthest agricultural practice from permaculture. This would be something like an entire field of only corn or soybeans
In contrast, we can say that food forests and forest gardens are some of the closest land management strategies to how plants grow in nature. Naturally, the connection and overlap between food forest layers and a permaculture garden is very high.
Food forests help achieve many goals of permaculture such as regenerative agriculture and creating a more resilient piece of land. By looking at how forests grow and maintain themselves in nature, we can copy the overall pattern and apply it to how we grow food. Basically we are creating a new type of forest. A forest where nearly all of the plants are ones that humans can use as food or otherwise benefit from. So we might swap out oak trees for fruit or nut trees. Or ferns may get replaced with perennial herbs. But the overall structure and natural layers of the forest remain the same.
Food forests use mainly perennial plants that don’t require the ground to get tilled or disturbed every year. Plants naturally die back in the winter and their leaves return nutrients back to the soil. It’s much more of a closed-loop system than a modern garden. Since food forests include layers of trees and shrubs, they also provide a home to a diverse array of animals and beneficial insects. There’s much more life than what you would find in an annual vegetable garden.
All of this biodiversity also supports the permaculture garden concept of guilds. A guild is a group of mutually beneficial species that form a larger ecosystem. A food forest really is greater than just the sum of its parts.
The Layers of a Food Forest
There are traditionally 7 layers of food forest. Although being big fans of fungi here at UV Sustainability, we like to also add an eighth mycelial or fungal layer of our own as well. Below are the layers of a food forest.
1. Tall Tree or Canopy Layer
This is the largest overarching layer of a food forest. It’s composed of trees that are typically around 9 meters (30 feet) high or more when fully mature.
It can include species of larger nut trees like walnut. Or nitrogen-fixing species like black locust. Some food forests may also incorporate timber species like oak or pine that aren’t necessarily edible.Depending on the size of your food forest, you might not have room to include trees of this size. In fact, unless you’ve got acres of land, you will probably not include this layer in your food garden.
2. Sub-Canopy or Large Shrub Layer
Trees in the sub-canopy layer are around 3 to 9 meters (10 to 30 feet) in height when fully mature. As mentioned above, if you’re trying to create a food forest in a residential backyard or something of a similar size, this will probably be the top layer of your food forest. It might not be possible to include taller trees without shading everything else out.
This food forest layer will most commonly contain fruit trees like apple, pear, cherry or apricots. These trees will act as the forest’s canopy layer if larger trees aren’t feasible.
3. Shrub Layer
Shrubs are perennial plants that are larger than most herbaceous crops, but don’t grow as large as trees.
Plants in this layer are up to 3 meters (10 feet) high. It includes things like blueberries, raspberries, currants or pretty much any kind of berry bush. Smaller nut species also fall under this layer. As well as medicinal plants like elderberry, witch hazel, rose or hawthorn.
4. Herbaceous Layer
In all of the above layers, trees and shrubs will lose their leaves in winter but their branches and overall structure will remain intact.
Plants in the herbaceous layer and below are different as they lack the thick woody stems of trees and shrubs. Every winter, they will die back completely and then grow back in the spring.
Edible plants in the herbaceous layer include asparagus, garlic, kale, rhubarb and horseradish. In fact, this is the layer where you’ll find most vegetables that you’d typically expect to be grown in a backyard garden.
Most culinary herbs like basil, parsley, cilantro and thyme also grow in the herbaceous layer. As well as medicinal herbs like chamomile, echinacea, valerian and Saint John’s wort
5. Ground Cover Layer
The ground cover or creeper layer features plants that grow closer to the ground than those found in the herbaceous layer. They tend to be more tolerant of shade and fill in any extra spaces where herbaceous plants haven’t already taken hold.
Ground cover plants can also tolerate getting stepped on a bit. So they can be a great alternative to having bare paths or walkways in your food forest. Plants in this layer also act as a living mulch to help keep weeds at bay.
Some edible ground cover plants include spearmint (or any kind of mint), creeping thyme, wintergreen, nasturtium, creeping rosemary, strawberries, oregano and sorrel.
6. Underground Layer
You can generally consider anything that produces a root crop to be part of the underground layer in a food forest.Of course, these plants don’t just grow underground. So there’s often a lot of crossover here with plants in the herbaceous or groundcover layer as well.
Alliums like onion, garlic, leeks, scallions or ramps are one family of common underground crops.
Jerusalem artichoke is a very hardy plant native to North America which grows edible tubers below ground, as well as small sunflower-like flowers to attract pollinators.
Even some flower species like dahlia and lily are part of the underground layer. They produce starchy tubers that can be used as a vegetable or dried and ground into flour.
Medicinal roots like ginseng and ginger also get incorporated into this layer of your food forest.
7. Climber, Vine or Vertical Layer
This food forest layer includes any climbing or vining plants.
You can think of this layer as a ladder that connects all of the other ladders. Vining plants can grow all the way from the ground layer to the tops of tree canopies.
Since these plants use your existing taller layers as trellises, it adds another layer of productivity to your food forest. Just make sure that you don’t select species that will choke out smaller plants.
The most obvious go-to for a vining plant is grapes. But beans, cucumbers and other crops can also benefit from climbing up your trees and shrubs. Even tomatoes are a welcome addition to this layer, as some varieties will grow to a height of six feet or more.
In a warmer climate, try passion fruit, chayote or kiwi.