An Introduction to ISEAL

Sustainability standards are a powerful market-based approach for creating positive social, environmental, and economic change, and driving transformation in how goods and services are produced. They define what is sustainable for a particular sector or crop, drive and maintain change with a verification process, and have additional tools and activities in place for tracing certified products; building the capacity of producers to move from baseline to higher performance standards over time; and bringing supply chain actors together.

ISEAL is the backbone of the standards and certification movement, defining credible practices for sustainability standards and providing a platform for the broader standards community to collaborate and innovate.

ISEAL’s mission is to strengthen sustainability standards systems for the benefit of people and the environment. In other words, our highest collective aim as an alliance is to demonstrate and scale up our sustainability impacts. By following internationally recognised guidance and working together within ISEAL, our members improve how they operate and deliver greater impacts, leading to a more effective standards movement globally.

ISEAL MembershipISEAL members are a group of mission-driven, multi-stakeholder based standard-setters and accreditation bodies working to foster progress in a growing number of sectors. They represent decades of work in hundreds of countries, with documented changes in production, supply chains, and business practices, as well as positive impacts on the people and landscapes where goods are produced.

ISEAL members are brought together by their commitment to the ISEAL Credibility Principles and a common belief that credible practices lead to higher social and environmental impact. Members demonstrate their credibility through compliance with the ISEAL Codes of Good Practice and a commitment to learning and improving with other standards.

ISEAL membership is a meaningful and significant undertaking and we welcome any multi-stakeholder standards initiative to come to us for information on how to join. Organisations initially must meet the baseline criteria of each of ISEAL’s Codes to qualify for associate membership and then transition to full membership as

ISEAL is the global membership association for sustainability standards

Sugarcane fields, USA © Bonsucro

they demonstrate overall compliance with each Code over time, verified through an independent evaluation. The best pathway for newer standards initiatives is to first join as an ISEAL subscriber. This way the organisation can benefit from ISEAL’s training and expertise, build relationships with more established standards, and put the building blocks in place for eventual ISEAL membership.

Defining CredibilityISEAL is the global authority in defining good practice for sustainability standards. Certification is a rapidly growing approach to sustainability, and it is not just the content of a standard that determines its performance. ISEAL ensures that its members are following credible practices in how they develop and manage their whole standards system.

Our internationally recognised Codes of Good Practice support standards to build well-functioning systems that are driven towards impact. The Codes reflect expert knowledge about how to effectively set a standard, evaluate impacts, and assess compliance, and they have been cited by governments, international organisations, businesses, and NGOs as the global reference for good practice.

At the heart of all of ISEAL’s work on good practice are the ISEAL Credibility Principles, a set of ten core values that capture how standards and certification in any sector should operate to be effective. These principles underpin

the ISEAL Codes and are intended to shape global discussion, assist stakeholders in making informed decisions about the standards they use, and push the whole standards movement to improve.

Standard-Setting CodeThe ISEAL Standard-Setting Code covers critical issues that should be considered in the standard-setting process, including how a standard is developed, structured, and governed. It outlines good practice for engaging stakeholders and defining clear and relevant sustainability objectives, as well as other actions that influence the credibility of the resulting standard.

ISEAL Credibility Principles› Sustainability

› Improvement

› Relevance

› Rigour

› Engagement

› Impartiality

› Transparency

› Accessibility

› Truthfulness

› Efficiency

Photo: (left) Pariamanu Native Community milling logs, Peru © David Dudenhoefer, Rainforest AlliancePhoto: (right) Gold mineral sorters, Peru © Eduardo Martino, Fairtrade

Impacts CodeThe ISEAL Impacts Code supports standards to become more systematic, transparent, and results-oriented in how they analyse their impacts. By implementing the Code, organisations define strategies for achieving their long-term goals and build monitoring and evaluation systems capable of tracking their progress to facilitate continuous improvement.

Assurance Code The ISEAL Assurance Code encourages standards to use certification or verification systems that operate consistently and effectively. Making the assurance process accessible - while at the same time maintaining rigour and impartiality - is a challenge, and the Code recognises that a variety of approaches can be used to deliver high-quality assurance.

Claims Good Practice GuideOne of the main ways that people engage with standards and certification is through sustainability claims and labels – in the form of ecolabels, logos, corporate messaging and business-to-business claims. Credible standards must have robust systems in place to develop their claims and also monitor how they are used. ISEAL is producing good practice guidance that will support standards to manage this process and also increase the quality and accuracy of claims, as people need to have confidence that claims are truthful. ISEAL is also creating a special tool for company buyers and other users of standards to untangle the complex web of sustainability claims.

Demonstrating ImpactsStandards are one of the most widely used sustainability tools globally for improving the impacts of production and trade, but there is a critical need to understand more about the long-term outcomes of certification. Stakeholders want to know that the standards they use are making a measurable difference, and one of ISEAL’s goals is to work with key actors, such as large retailers and emerging economy leaders, to demonstrate the full range of impacts certification brings, including the business benefits. ISEAL also engages with the research community to drive higher quality independent studies that can help standards systems to identify strengths and weaknesses.

ISEAL supports standard-setters to develop robust systems for monitoring and evaluating their impacts as this is a foundation of what it means to be credible. By implementing the ISEAL Impacts Code and learning from their peers, ISEAL members are tracking their performance and embedding learning into the core of their organisations so that they can continuously improve impacts.

ISEAL also works on collaborative impacts projects, including leading an effort of agricultural and forestry standards to understand and deepen their collective contribution to poverty reduction, and facilitating a group of retailers to communicate the impacts of timber certification.

Photo: Ashtamudi clam fishery, Kerala, India © Juhan Samuel, the Marine Stewardship Council

Increasing AdoptionISEAL acts as a voice for the standards movement, influencing major brands, retailers, financial institutions, public sector agencies, and other stakeholders to use credible standards as part of their core business and sustainability strategies. While there has been an overall exponential growth of certified production in recent years, in certain critical sectors and regions, awareness and adoption of standards is only just starting. ISEAL is working to harness this nascent interest in sustainability, particularly in emerging markets such as India and China, to demonstrate the positive impacts of standards, as well as the innovations that will make them more effective.

We also foster dialogue on the ‘business case’ for certification, as the majority of companies expect standards to deliver concrete benefits such as risk reduction, increased profitability, and supply chain efficiency. To address the confusion that some have over the range of options, we encourage the use of the ISEAL Credibility Principles and ISEAL Codes of Good Practice to make informed decisions about which standards to partner with.

Many governments are beginning to incorporate private standards into policy and legislation and recognise them in a number of different ways. ISEAL also engages with governments to ensure they understand the importance of credible practices and to encourage them to use standards in their policies in the most effective ways possible.

Improving EffectivenessStandards leaders need to be constantly innovating to keep up with the pace of change in the world and meet the expectations of those who use certification and certified products. Within member working groups, ISEAL provides a neutral platform for exchange, which not only enables shared learning and innovation, but also helps to build trust among standards practitioners. Participation in ISEAL working groups leads members to improve their credibility and effectiveness, therefore driving market uptake of their programmes.

This interaction has spurred deeper collaboration on core topics like assurance, monitoring and evaluation, and claims and labelling. In addition, ISEAL convenes members to develop shared approaches to important global challenges such as living wage, pesticides, and gender equity.

ISEAL also brings its members together with newer standards initiatives, as well as the broader network of businesses, NGOs, researchers, and other actors. The ISEAL Community connects these organisations through conferences, consultations, and online engagement and is a major place for thought-leadership on how standards can affect change. You can learn more about becoming an ISEAL subscriber so as to be part of the ISEAL Community at: www.iseal.org/subscriber

Photo: Textile Manufacturing, India © Scott Welker, GoodWeave

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