Experts from ISEAL, and ISEAL members discuss what our research is telling us about the reach, contribution and impacts of standards on smallholder farmers and what this means for future innovations and partnerships.

We believe that the credibility of market-based sustainability tools is more important than ever for trade and public policy. But what do we mean by credibility? And what trends and issues are shaping our understanding of credibility going forward?

In 2013, ISEAL launched the Credibility Principles, which provide an international reference for defining the foundations of credible practices for sustainability standards. Over the last decade there has also been increasing interest and research into specific principles such as transparency, accessibility and how system credibility is an important factor influencing impacts.

The paper provides insights on growth trends and geographic presence of seven ISEAL member schemes that are leading global agricultural standards across seven commodities. We focus on trends and presence in producing and exporting countries where these schemes are adopted, with a specific interest in presence in low and lower-income classified countries.

Remediation is a fundamental principle of international human rights. In 2022 and 2023, ISEAL ran a dialogue series with ISEAL members, supported by the UN OHCHR Accountability and Remedy Project, to build awareness on key remediation concepts and activities, take stock of existing efforts on remediation, identify cross-cutting challenges, and inspire further action on remediation.

Information about grants to conduct remote auditing pilots

A compilation of the lessons learned from four pilot projects in remote auditing from Responsible Jewellery Council, LEAF Marque, Beter Cotton Initiative, and Fairtrade USA. LEAF Marque and the Responsible Jewellery Council looked at the extent to which remote auditing could provide an alternative to in-person on-site visits, while the two other pilot projects used a remote phone survey based on worker voice technology to carry out interviews with workers in factory settings (in the case of Fair Trade USA) and in an agricultural setting on cotton farms (Better Cotton Initiative – BCI).

Remote Audit Practices and Alignment Findings from Interviews with Supply Chain Companies – November 2020

This resource presents a summary of the one-on-one interviews with ISEAL members and select other sustainability initiatives as part of the project on remote auditing practices and assurance responses to COVID-19.

Discussion paper and webinar on landscape and jurisdictional assurance and claims.

This report presents methodology and results of the ISEAL Innovations Fund-supported project 'Codifying Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in Voluntary Standards Systems', led by Equitable Origin

In this report ISEAL offers insights from three baselines of evaluations that it commissioned in 2015 and were published in June 2016

Report produced for the ISEAL Alliance Innovations Fund project “Integrating new data to improve risk assessments and detection of forced labour vulnerability in agricultural supply chains”.

A Report produced for the ISEAL Alliance Innovations Fund project “Integrating new data to improve risk assessments and detection of forced labour vulnerability in agricultural supply chains”.

The ISEAL-funded research project Integrating new data to improve risk assessments and detection of forced labour in agricultural supply chains (2017 – 18) is an attempt to build the evidence base around monitoring and remediating forced labour in agricultural supply chains.

A report of a series of field tests conducted by ASI regarding the usage of GIS during audits in Germany, Russia and Malaysia. Result of the report is a self-starter kit, exploring and explaining different tools aiming to help auditors integrate GIS into their audit routine.

This report first examines how standards systems are being applied to landscapes and jurisdictions. It then explores factors that are important to the effective application of sustainability strategies at a landscape level and identifies opportunities to strengthen the role that standards systems can play in implementing those strategies.

This methodological paper from ISEAL shares insights and lessons learned from three ongoing impact evaluations that completed their baseline in 2016 and are due for end line evaluation in 2019.

Moving towards an outcome-based standard creates the opportunity for LEAF to communicate more closely on the impacts of implementing the LEAF Marque Standard, measuring outcomes directly rather than proxying them with practices.

This 2014 report, prepared by Centre for Responsible Business with the support of ISEAL, analyses the landscape for the import and use of sustainable palm oil in India, looking at major drivers for and gaps in domestic demand.