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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.