Macka's Pastoral: Expanding the sustainability vision

Macka’s Pastoral is a sixth-generation, family-owned Angus beef business. It was started in 1884 by two sisters – Aunty Audrey and Aunty Bella. Today, the Mackenzie family runs a NSW-based, paddock-to-plate operation across both stud and beef cattle. 

This innovative farming family puts environmental and economic sustainability at the heart of their work. They credit the Australian Beef Sustainability Framework (ABSF) and partners like Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) for setting bold carbon neutral targets in 2017, including the industry’s CN30 goal (carbon neutral by 2030).

This helped kickstart Macka’s own path to carbon neutrality, achieved from paddock to gate in 2019. Since then, they’ve banked more than 10,000 carbon credits by insetting their on-farm emissions.

They now sell carbon neutral beef across Australia and internationally, including to Qantas. This partnership allows Qantas to build Macka’s sustainability achievements into its own customer messaging, placing the beef producer at the centre of the corporate partner’s sustainability story.

Broadening the sustainability strategy

Being carbon neutral is only part of the story, and Macka’s quickly realised that they needed to broaden their sustainability strategy. By working closely with the ABSF, they tapped into a wide range of resources, from the materiality assessment and benchmark data, to a sustainability framework spanning four themes, 24 industry priority issues and 52 indicators that align with global standards such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Reporting Initiative, Global Roundtable on Sustainable Beef and others.

In partnership with SEAOAK Consulting, Macka’s developed their own internal beef producer sustainability reporting framework, aligned to the ABSF themes and priority issues.

However, the team found that the indicators in the ABSF were mostly applicable at the industry level and not meaningful to their business level. It’s a common challenge for producers looking to align with the ABSF.

To fix this, Macka’s and SEAOAK created a new set of 52 producer-level indicators, mapped back to the ABSF. They also included standards from the Australian Accounting Standards Board S2 requirements into their new beef producer framework.

Caption: Angus heifers thriving on lush pastures, with access to high-quality dry hay for roughage and a specially designed mineral lick to support animal health, fertility, weight gain, and methane reduction. Image source: Robert Mackenzie LinkedIn

Capturing data and progress

Macka’s is now in the process of finalising funding to create a digital tool that captures ESG data and tracks farm performance against these indicators. It will also connect with national traceability systems to:

• Provide a comprehensive view across each of the sustainability pillars. Enabling beef producers to track their progress each year and understand any major gaps or risks for their organisation.
• Enable farmers to understand how they benchmark against other similarly sized farms and climatic regions.
• Leverage blockchain and global standards by an organisation called “GS1” to enhance cattle marketing and premium-beef branding

Macka’s and SEAOAK are working towards having this tool available across the entire beef industry through a project which will commence in mid-2025.

Macka said the ABSF brough structure and clarity to what they were already doing, giving them a consistent, credible way to connect efforts and tell their story. It also helped them identify gaps.

For example, while they had strong practices around climate mitigation (e.g. carbon sequestration), they had few strategies for climate adaptation. They’ve since strengthened drought resilience by growing and storing more hay and feed. Their broader focus now includes environmental health and revenue diversification to stay agile in an unpredictable climate.

Macka’s encourages other beef producers to use the ABSF and its stakeholder network. Macka’s believes sustainability drives profitability, helping to secure premium prices around $180 higher per head than comparable cattle sold on the same day.

Many thanks to Pinion Advisory for the contribution of this article.