Download the Executive Summary.
Download the Full Scaling Up Strategy.
In early June 2011 the ISEAL Alliance and its members launched the Scaling Up Strategy: Scaling Up the Impacts of Voluntary Standards, providing a clearly defined strategy for ISEAL members to dramatically increase their social, environmental and economic impacts.
Over the past two decades the sustainability standards organisations that work with ISEAL Alliance, including Fairtrade, UTZ Certified, FSC and the Rainforest Alliance, have established market approaches to address some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems.
They have had a major impact on the ground while creating growing demand for sustainable products. The private sector and governments have become increasingly interested in standards systems and the potential they have to transform global markets. But in order to achieve this transformation, standards systems must scale up with unprecedented speed and efficiency.
Executive Summary
Making a Collective Impact
One important element of the Scaling Up Strategy is collaboration. Based on this, the strategy has focused on identifying ways that voluntary standards systems can have a greater impact by working together, and how they can continue to play a vital role in bringing about sustainable development solutions. Together, ISEAL members will focus on the strategy’s four goals that have been developed through in-depth stakeholder consultation and that address critical factors in the standards movement. Those goals are:
Putting the Strategy into Action
To successfully carry out the strategy and reach its goals, ISEAL and its members will depend on a wide network of partnerships. In addition, and as part of the goal to influence important external players, ISEAL members will need to work together to influence major supporters in the scaling up, such as governments, the financial sector, and sustainability information systems.
ISEAL members will also continue to strengthen the important leadership role that social and environmental standards have played in sustainable development, by expanding their work in emerging economies such as Brazil, India and China. Work will also continue to address critical cross-cutting global issues, such as climate change and water.
ISEAL’s members believe the greatest impacts can be made by ensuring that the highest number of producers and enterprises can benefit from the sustainable practices embedded in standards. To facilitate producers’ access to those practices, ISEAL members will work together and give special attention to ensuring that small or otherwise disadvantaged producers are able to engage with standards systems.
Finally, to increase their effectiveness and efficiency, and knowing that growth requires each standards system to be a strong and credible partner for business, ISEAL members will focus on high-quality implementation of their standard, and proven achievement of their intended impacts.