The Impacts Code
The ISEAL Impacts Code provides a framework for standards systems to better understand the social and environmental results of their work, as well as the effectiveness of their various activities and programs. The Code offers guidelines for building a monitoring and evaluation system capable of examining both short-term and long-term outcomes and requires standards systems to publically report on the results of their evaluations. All standard-setting organisations that are members of the ISEAL Alliance commit to implementing the Impacts Code.
Download the Impacts Code here.
Setting Up Credible Monitoring and Evaluation Systems
The Impacts Code requires standards systems to develop and implement a monitoring and evaluation plan that includes all the steps required to assess their contributions to social and environmental impact. These steps include:
- Identifying the social and environmental impact that the system is seeking to achieve
- Defining the strategies that the system is implementing to get to the desired outcomes
- Choosing indicators and collecting data to measure and track the short-term outcomes of these strategies
- Conducting regular analysis and reporting of monitoring data, and conducting or contracting out additional evaluations of impact to draw causal links between strategies and impacts
- Setting up feedback loops that use the monitoring and evaluation findings to improve standards content and operations and to refine understanding of how to produce social and environmental change through standard systems
Demonstrating and Improving Impacts
ISEAL members contributed actively to the development of ISEAL Impacts Code and recognise the importance of understanding, communicating and learning from the impacts of their programs. With support from the Ford Foundation, ISEAL and its agriculture and forestry members have launched a five year project to understand the contribution that standard systems make towards improving livelihoods and reducing poverty among smallholder producers and labourers. ISEAL members who will be directly involved in this project include Forest Stewardship Council, Fairtrade International, 4C Association, Rainforest Alliance,/Sustainable Agriculture Network, and Union for Ethical Biotrade.
In this project and other efforts to implement the Impacts Code, ISEAL and its members seek to build on expertise, knowledge, and systems already developed by other organisations with experience in monitoring and evaluation of sustainability standards. This includes organisations such as COSA (Committee on Sustainability Assessment) and research organisations like CATIE.
Comments and Contact
The current version of the Impacts Code (v1.0) was approved by the ISEAL Board on June 2010 following a long consultation process.
If you have any comments about the content of the ISEAL Impacts Code please contact kristin [at] isealalliance [dot] org.
If you have any questions about the development process of the ISEAL Impacts Code please email them to paddy [at] isealalliance [dot] org.
The next review and revision of the Impacts Code will take place in 2013.