We are excited to launch the revision of the ISEAL Chain of Custody (CoC) Definitions and Models Guidance. The revision process will include:

In 2022, CGIAR's HER+ initiative researchers partnered with ISEAL to explore how sustainability systems are able to contribute to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. Gender is a crosscutting theme in ISEAL’s strategic priority to power solutions to sustainability challenges.

This document outlines considerations for encouraging participation from local actors in the Blueprint approach.

There are different ways in which sustainability systems can operate at landscape level. The ATLA project was designed to explore key considerations at play in these strategic decisions, such as where to focus efforts, the scale of time and resources needed, how to measure performance at landscape level, and what it means to work in partnership with existing multi-stakeholder initiatives. Two pilots, in Turkey and Pakistan, provided practical insights for these strategic decisions at Better Cotton.

This case study forms part of the Rainforest Alliance project Use of Risk Maps for Child and Forced Labour in Risk-Based Assurance Processes, supported by the ISEAL Innovations Fund between September 2020 to October 2021.The project sought to test the prototypes of sectoral risk maps for child labor and forced labor in Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and Honduras.

This technical paper identifies opportunities for further Guidance that we believe will strengthen an effective implementation of EUDR.ISEAL has been engaging closely with sustainability systems to understand how they are aligning and adapting in response to EUDR. In the process of adapting, sustainability systems have identified outstanding ambiguities in the Regulation and published FAQs (v1.2) which may hinder effective and consistent implementation of EUDR by operators and traders. Our paper identifies three opportunities for further guidance:

This briefing note shares insights and learnings from a series of semi-structured interviews ISEAL conducted with fourteen leading, global companies engaged in living wage actions.

The first mile, the journey from production farm to the first aggregation or processing point, is a
critical yet often overlooked segment of agricultural supply chains. This report aims to shed light on
the actors operating in this space and the dynamics that shape it, drawing on examples from cocoa,
coffee, rubber and palm oil across diverse regions.

Juan Isaza, Program Manager, explains what the IPM Coalition is and how this initiative will accelerate the elimination of highly hazardous pesticide usage throughout the world.

A working paper for the project “New data to detect forced labour in agriculture”.

We often talk about system-level change to address root causes of poverty and imbalance of risk. This requires us to unite in different and creative ways. The Living Income Community of Practice motivates actors across sectors to help close the income gap, so that smallholders can earn a decent standard of living as a basic human right.

Ensuring resilient livelihoods and sustained employment for vulnerable communities was already a stretch pre-Covid-19. For those communities lacking a stable income, the impact has been inconceivable.

This blog outlines a set of key messages on due diligence and standards systems in the context of TFA letter to the European Commission.

Chain of custody (CoC) and traceability are big news right now. But are we all speaking the same language? We’re updating our CoC models and definitions guidance and we would value your input. Our public consultation is now open.

With a shift towards outcome-focused sustainability standards and measurement, ISEAL commissioned 3Keel to review different metrics for monitoring sustainability performance.