ISEAL has developed a good practice guide to help ensure that sustainability claims made by jurisdictions, landscape initiatives, and the companies that source from or support them, are credible. The guidance covers the structural and performance claims a jurisdictional entity may wish to make, along with the supporting action claims of other related stakeholders.

ISEAL's guiding framework to support companies and sustainability systems to make credible living wage claims.

This document highlights news and insights from the world of sustainability measurements for ISEAL members, paying special attention to indicators and metrics.

This document represents a short ‘start here’ level introduction to the ‘Accounting & Reporting the Emissions of Certified Commodities’ suite of guidance documents. This document is specifically aimed at buyers of certified commodities as users, stakeholders, participants and license holders of ISEAL member schemes or other sustainability systems.

This document represents a short ‘start here’ level introduction to the ‘Accounting & Reporting the Emissions of Certified Commodities’ suite of guidance documents. This document is specifically aimed at Certificate Holders and potential applicants for certification (henceforth ‘CH/A’) with ISEAL member schemes or other sustainability systems that have or are commencing on a process to align their certification of commodities and chains of custody models with emissions reporting good practices. The CH/A community for each scheme will reflect the nature of the work entailed.

This document is specifically aimed at Oversight and Assurance Providers to ISEAL member schemes or other sustainability systems that have or are commencing on a process to align their certification of commodities and chains of custody models with emissions reporting good practices.

This document represents a short ‘start here’ level introduction to the ‘Accounting & Reporting the emissions of certified commodities’ suite of guidance documents. This document is specifically aimed at ISEAL member schemes or other sustainability systems who have commenced or are considering commencing on a process to align their certification of commodities and chains of custody models with emissions reporting good practices.

An introduction to ISEAL’s Finance Committee, which was established in 2006 to oversee all issues related to the financial management of ISEAL. The Committee reviews for example ISEAL’s quarterly accounts, annual budgets and other issues related to ISEAL’s financial reporting and performance.

An introduction to the Membership Committee, a permanent committee of the ISEAL Board of Directors that is responsible primarily for forming recommendations on new membership applications, deciding on member disputes that may arise as a result of an independent evaluation of Code Compliance, and deciding on appeals decisions of the Secretariat not to recommend ISEAL Community Member status or to suspend or withdraw Code Compliant status.

An introduction to ISEAL’s Technical Committee. The Technical Committee is a permanent sub-committee of the ISEAL Board that is responsible primarily for technical oversight of the ISEAL Codes of Good Practice and other Credibility Tools.

This report summarises an assessment of a range of leading metrics that can be used to credibly measure and report on performance over time and across multiple spatial scales. The research focuses on six critical sustainability issues: deforestation, biodiversity, water use, forced labour, poverty, and Greenhouse Gas emissions.

This paper discusses how voluntary sustainability standards and certification schemes can play an important role in this smart mix, in particular in terms of supporting supply chain regulation on deforestation.

Since launching in 2013 after extensive global consultations, ISEAL's Credibility Principles have become an international reference for defining the foundations of credible practices for sustainability standards. Starting mid-May 2020, we are leading consultations that will expand the scope of the Credibility Principles beyond sustainability standards to include a wider range of systems, such as data-driven and landscape approaches. We are also updating content to reflect current and future trends affecting standards and similar systems.

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.

This short paper provides high-level summaries of BetterCoal, IRMA and TSM and outlines under which circumstances ResponsibleSteel will recognise mine sites participating in the programmes.

ResponsibleSteel has assessed Bettercoal, IRMA and TSM against a defined recognition benchmark as laid out in the ‘Recognition assessment tool’. The recognition assessments served to determine whether the programmes meet our benchmark and could thus be recognised. This paper provides high-level summaries of the three programmes and outlines under which circumstances ResponsibleSteel will recognise mine sites participating in the programmes

This document describes ResponsibleSteel’s methodology for the recognition of input material programmes. It is underpinned by a series of Excel templates, the ‘ResponsibleSteel Recognition Assessment Tool’, that serve to implement the methodology.