Unlock the power of data with the ISEAL Core Metadata Set
Sustainability systems need clear and consistent data standards to ensure information is reliable, easy to understand, and trustworthy. Without standards, data from different organisations can be inconsistent, making it hard to compare progress or trust results.
Standards create common definitions and rules for sharing data, improving transparency and reducing confusion or misleading claims. In short, data standards build trust, foster collaboration, and drive progress toward a sustainable future.
The ISEAL Core Metadata Set is a universal framework to organise, share, and discover sustainability information. It makes it easier for organisations, researchers, and businesses to collaborate and drive meaningful change. Developed over three years by the Forest Stewardship Council and ISEAL, with support from the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), this tool can streamline information flow and improve data sharing. Pilots have shown that it can combine data to identify risks in specific regions or supply chains, while consultations ensured it aligns with other frameworks and data standards for broader collaboration. The ISEAL Core Metadata Set is publicly available and marks a major step toward making sustainability data more accessible, reusable, and impactful.
- Explore the ISEAL Core Metadata Set: Visit the ISEAL Core Metadata Set on GitHub to learn how it can help standardize your sustainability data.
- Adopt the Standards: Start using the ISEAL Core Metadata Set to align your sustainability reporting and data management with global best practices. This will enhance transparency, credibility, and interoperability.
- Share and Collaborate: Promote the use of these standards within your network. Encourage partners, stakeholders, and peers to adopt them, fostering a unified approach to sustainability data.
This brief video introduces the ISEAL Core Metadata Set as a tool to improve governance, discovery, and use of the data and information that sustainability systems collect, manage, and communicate. As sustainability systems increase the amount of data they store, it becomes important to apply standardized metadata as a way of querying these assets using common terms and concepts. Doing so helps to maintain the data and provide end users with flexible search tools. The ISEAL Core Metadata Set is a tool to ensure your digital content can be easily discovered from other sites and applications, increasing web presence and driving traffic to these valuable assets.
This project was made possible through funding from the ISEAL Innovations Fund, supported by SECO.
Contact Elizabeth Kennedy (elizabeth@isealalliance.org) for more information.