This baseline report presents the initial stage of a research project with the overarching goal to examine the impact on farmer livelihoods and poverty alleviation within Indonesian coffee-growing communities as a result of processes of verification or certification against different sustainability standards. These standards include the Common Code for the Coffee Community (4C) Code of Conduct, the Sustainable Agriculture Network/ Rainforest Alliance (SAN/RA) standard, and Utz Certification.
Landscape, jurisdictional and other regional approaches are gaining momentum as potential tools for scaling-up the sustainable sourcing of commodities. This briefing aims to assist sustainability standards in assessing these new approaches by providing background information and five ‘entry points’ for exploring potential engagement.
In this podcast, Jeffrey Neilson from the University of Sydney discusses the research report on the Evaluation of the Impacts of Sustainability Standards on Smallholder Coffee Farmers in Southern Sumatra, Indonesia published in 2019.
In this podcast, Carlos de los Rios from COSA discusses the final research report from an impact evaluation on the Impacts of Certification on Small Coffee Farmers Western Kenya, 2014-2017. The report was published in 2019. ISEAL and its members are working together on the Demonstrating and Improving Poverty Impacts (DIPI) program, to understand the contribution that certification systems can make to poverty alleviation and pro-poor development. ISEAL commissioned an evaluation to identify whether and how certification contributes to improving farmer livelihoods.
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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.
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.