Is EOV the gold standard for measuring regeneration?

Glen Burrows • 21 February 2025

A Standard for Regenerative Agriculture


In an era where sustainability and regenerative agriculture are at the forefront of land management discussions, Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) stands as a critical framework for measuring and ensuring the health of our ecosystems. Developed by the Savory Institute, EOV is a science-based, empirical method that assesses ecosystem function through direct observation and measurement.


Unlike conventional certification systems that focus on practices, EOV measures outcomes—the tangible results of how land is being managed. This shift ensures that farmers and land managers are not just following prescribed methods but are actively improving soil, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience over time.


What Does EOV Measure?


EOV evaluates key ecosystem processes to provide a clear picture of land health. These include:


  • Soil Health & Functionality – Assessing organic matter, water infiltration.
  • Biodiversity – Observing plant species diversity using the Shannon Wiener Diversity Index.
  • Water Cycle Efficiency – Measuring water infiltration rate, and observing key indicators of water cycle.
  • Nutrient Cycling – Understanding how effectively nutrients are being cycled through the ecosystem.
  • Energy Flow – Assessing conversion of sunlight into plant biomass, quality and quantity of forage, grazing pattern and grazing intensity.


By measuring these critical functions, EOV provides actionable insights for land managers, helping them refine their practices to foster long-term ecological resilience.


How is it Measured?


EOV relies on both qualitative and quantitative assessment methods, combining field observation with data collection tools to ensure consistency and reliability.


The process involves:


Trained Monitors:

Specialists who undergo rigorous training to assess land using standardised methodologies.


Field Surveys:

Direct observations of plant diversity, soil stability, and water infiltration capacity.


Photographic Evidence:

Capturing GPS-located visual records over time to illustrate ecological change.


Soil Sampling:

Collecting samples to analyse soil organic matter.


Data Logging Technology:

Tools like Bart, 3LM’s proprietary software, facilitate the collection and organisation of data, ensuring accuracy and real-time reporting.


By integrating these methodologies, EOV ensures that land assessments are both comprehensive and repeatable, allowing for precise tracking of ecological trends.


The Importance of Standardisation


A major challenge in regenerative agriculture has been the lack of a universally accepted, data-driven standard for land health. Without standardisation, assessments can be subjective, inconsistent, and difficult to compare across different locations or time periods.


EOV provides a globally recognised methodology that ensures comparability, reliability, and repeatability. This allows different land managers, scientists, and investors to assess land conditions with a shared language and set of metrics. Having a common standard ensures that regenerative agriculture can be scaled effectively while maintaining credibility.


The Human Element:


Addressing Subjectivity in Measurement

One of the biggest challenges in ecosystem assessment is the human factor—interpretation and measurement can vary between different observers, leading to potential inconsistencies.


EOV tackles this challenge in two key ways:


Training & Certification:

Monitors undergo rigorous training to ensure their assessments align with established protocols. This ensures that no matter who is conducting the evaluation, the data remains reliable and comparable. EOV Monitors go through an annual re-calibration process at the start of each EOV season.


Technology & Verification:

Tools like Bart, our proprietary software, assist in data capture and processing, reducing human error and enabling efficient quality control. Additionally, trained verifiers oversee assessments to ensure consistency. As part of maintaining a global standard, Savory Institute's Quality Assurance unit evaluates the work of Savory Network hubs all over the world.


The Role of the Ecological Health Index (EHI)


A core output of EOV is the Ecological Health Index (EHI)—a composite score that reflects the current state of ecosystem function. The EHI provides an overall snapshot of land health, but on its own, it is not sufficient. A single measurement does not tell the whole story.


The Power of Comparing Data Over Time


EOV is designed not just to provide a moment-in-time snapshot but to track trends and changes in land health. Comparisons between data sets, collected at different time intervals, allow us to:


Identify Progress or Decline

Seeing how land responds to management practices over years.


Understand Ecological Trends

Recognising whether interventions are leading to lasting improvements.


Make Informed Decisions

Providing farmers, land managers, and investors with data-driven insights to guide better regenerative practices.


By continuously measuring and comparing EHI scores over time, EOV ensures that land management decisions are grounded in long-term ecological impact, not just short-term assessments.


Conclusion: The Future of Ecological Outcome Verification


EOV represents a paradigm shift in regenerative agriculture. By focusing on outcomes rather than prescribed practices, providing a standardised yet adaptable framework, and ensuring objective, comparable data through training and technology, it is driving a more effective, scalable approach to land health monitoring.


With tools like Bart enhancing data accuracy and global standardisation making results more comparable, EOV is paving the way for a future where regenerative agriculture is not just a philosophy—but a measurable, verifiable, and scalable reality.


For land managers, investors, and policymakers, EOV provides the critical missing link—a reliable, science-based method to track and improve ecological outcomes on a global scale.


Call us now
Contact us for more information
by Glen Burrows 16 April 2025
Why Easter Marks the Start of the EOV Season!
by Glen Burrows 15 April 2025
What Are Indicators? The terms "leading" and "lagging indicators" originate from systems theory and are widely used in economics. In this context, leading indicators give clues about where the economy is going, while lagging indicators show us what has already happened. A classic leading indicator is the number of new job advertisements. If companies are posting lots of job openings, it usually means they expect business to grow soon — a sign the economy may be about to improve. A well-known lagging indicator is the unemployment rate. When the economy slows down, businesses take time to react, and layoffs often happen after the downturn has already begun. So while job ads can warn of change, unemployment confirms it has already occurred. Indicators in Ecology In ecology, particularly within Holistic Management, the same principles apply. Leading and lagging indicators help land managers respond to environmental changes more effectively. Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) offers a structured framework for monitoring ecological health using both leading and lagging indicators. Classic leading indicators in EOV include: Dung distribution – shows how effectively animals are using the landscape, which relates to grazing impact. Litter cover – refers to plant material covering the soil surface, helping retain moisture and build organic matter. Soil capping – early signs of water infiltration issues and surface degradation. Classic lagging indicators in EOV include: Soil carbon content – a long-term measure of soil health Biodiversity (plant species richness) – reflects broader ecological balance, but responds slowly to changes in management. Water infiltration rates – reveal soil structure and function after long-term management effects. Leading indicators offer subtle, early signals that help land stewards adjust management in real time. Lagging indicators provide essential long-term feedback but often appear only after major changes have occurred. The Human Condition as a Lagging Indicator Human beings have been remarkably successful in inhabiting every climatic region on Earth, not through biological adaptation alone, but by modifying environments with tools, clothing, shelter, agriculture, and technology. This resilience has allowed us to thrive well beyond the natural carrying capacity of local ecosystems. By importing resources, controlling temperature, and artificially generating food and water, we have effectively decoupled our survival from the immediate health of our environments. However, this very success has dulled our sensitivity to ecological feedback. Because we buffer ourselves from natural limits, we often fail to notice when those limits are being breached. Our ability to override early warnings with technology — irrigation, fertilisers, antibiotics, global supply chains — means we no longer feel the signals of stress in ecosystems. In the past, poor soil meant failed crops and hunger, prompting quick behavioural change. Now, consequences are delayed, but not avoided. This resilience is deceptive. It creates the illusion of stability while ecological degradation accumulates in the background. By the time problems become visible — mass species extinction, collapsing insect populations, polluted waterways, declining soil fertility — critical thresholds may have already been crossed. Our responses come too late, often reactive rather than adaptive. Technology extends our comfort, but dulls our ecological sensitivity. Instead of being part of the feedback loop, we exist outside it — until the damage is undeniable. That is why human behaviour now functions as a lagging indicator. We wait for catastrophe before we act. A Flawed Operating System This lag is rooted in our worldview. Modernity, grounded in dualism and industrial logic, sees humans as masters of nature, not participants within a living whole. It encourages control, prediction, and efficiency over perception, humility, and adaptability. This mindset dulls our ecological senses. It overrides our capacity for intuitive, embodied responsiveness. It privileges measurable outputs over relational awareness. As a result, we are systemically insensitive to leading indicators. We miss the bare soil, the collapsed microbial life, the vanishing pollinators — until their absence disrupts our daily lives. In Holistic Management, trained observers — called monitors — are taught to read the land not only through long-term trends but through its moment-to-moment language. What would it mean for us, collectively, to read the Earth in this way? The Potential of Conscious Adaptation While we currently lag, we don’t have to. The beauty of holistic systems — and of life itself — is that they can be trained to respond more intelligently, more attentively, and more quickly. We can become leading indicators. We can tune into early signs of imbalance. We can feel into the edges of complexity before they fracture. We can act, not react. This shift begins with a new internal operating system, one that Holistic Management helps develop. When we define a Holistic Context for our lives, families, organisations, or communities, we begin making decisions rooted in long-term integrity rather than short-term gain. The health of soil, water, people, and purpose are no longer competing interests but interconnected essentials. This isn’t about idealism — it’s about function. It’s about survival through wholeness. Learning to Sense Again Our capacity to live regeneratively depends on our capacity to sense. Not just to measure or model, but to develop a more reliable holistic impression of nature.To be in a new relationship. To notice, to the best of our emergent abilities the nature of the wind, the soil, the plants, the insects and creatures, the changing seasons. In this way, our technological ingenuity isn’t the problem — our disconnection is. Perhaps the next evolution of human intelligence isn’t in artificial intelligence or global policy, but in restoring our capacity for attuned, holistic sensing — the kind of awareness a good grazer has, or a river shifting course to find flow. A Final Reflection The ecological crises we face today aren’t just about pollution or carbon. They are symptoms of a deeper crisis of responsiveness. We are not behaving as if we are part of the living system. We’re lagging, watching from the outside, narrating collapse like a documentary. But we can wake up. We can step back into the loop. Just as a landscape can recover when the right indicators are observed and the right context is held, so too can we — as individuals and as a species — become wise stewards of our place within the whole. If human behaviour is currently a lagging indicator, then the great challenge — and opportunity — of our time is to become a leading one.  The very tool that enabled our extraordinary resilience — technology — can now be repurposed to restore our sensitivity and responsiveness. Rather than standing apart from nature, we can become an active part of it once again, adapting in real time and accelerating ecological recovery faster than passive rewilding alone ever could.
by Glen Burrows 11 April 2025
…But Were Afraid to Ask
by Glen Burrows 4 April 2025
What are the Context Checks and how do we use them?
by Glen Burrows 4 April 2025
WEBINAR  Growing Rich with Nature – A Special Film Screening with 3LM
by Glen Burrows 31 March 2025
Agroforestry with Pigs: A Woodland Enterprise Model We explore the role of pigs in regenerating and maintaining woodland whilst generating income -- please find the recording & transcript below
by Glen Burrows 27 March 2025
The Foundation of Holistic Management
by Glen Burrows 21 March 2025
How the Four Ecosystem Processes Work Together
by Glen Burrows 14 March 2025
At its core, Holistic Management is about making decisions that align with long-term ecological health, economic viability, and social well-being, no matter where on earth.
by Glen Burrows 14 March 2025
Complexity creates stability in community dynamics
More posts