The sustainability landscape is rapidly shifting, leading to a diversification of sustainability tools and approaches, as well as an evolution of standards systems.

Sustainability standards, including ISEAL members the Global Coffee Platform (GCP) and Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), are expanding their strategies and pursuing approaches other than standards and certification.

ISEAL, its Board and members place significant value in the integrity of ISEAL membership. The Board has discussed at length how to manage its relationship with SAN and GCP whose approach has moved away from the standards-plus-assurance model which currently forms the basis for many of our membership requirements.  

In its discussions, the Board accounted for the valuable ongoing contributions of these members to the ISEAL community and the innovations they are bringing to the movement, their historic compliance to ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice as well as the fact that ISEAL is in the process of evaluating its membership requirements, specifically to address the evolving landscape.

The Board has concluded that both SAN and GCP should remain as ISEAL members until the membership requirements have been revised. Both members have agreed to be evaluated against the revised criteria as well as continuing to abide by ISEAL’s Code of Ethics.