On 17 November 2021, the European Commission published its Proposal for a Regulation on Deforestation-free Products
(hereafter “the Proposal”). This position paper outlines how ISEAL believes this draft legislation should be adjusted to have a deeper impact on preventing deforestation.

This guidance document offers suggestions as input for consideration for the recent EUDR guidelines on the use of certification. ISEAL has built a broad-based consensus around what constitutes credible operating practices for sustainability certification schemes. Our Code of Good Practice captures this consensus in a publicly available normative document against which all ISEAL Code compliant members have been evaluated.

This case study highlights how credible voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) support palm oil companies with regulatory requirements such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Featuring the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), it explores how VSS enable traceability, ensure legal production, and promote smallholder inclusion - helping businesses build deforestation-and conversion-free (DCF) supply chains that go beyond compliance.

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.

ISEAL is seeking a consultant to support our work on the effective implementation of corporate deforestation-free commitments and EUDR. This research project will focus on identifying tools and initiatives that help meet EUDR’s legal production requirements, particularly in land-use rights and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). The selected consultant will conduct desktop research and targeted engagement to:

The Smart Assurance project supported by the ISEAL Innovations Fund until July 2024 developed and tested a new type of oversight process that combines the use of satellite data, analytical methods, and ground verification supported by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones) with assessment practices to provide enhanced oversight both at scale and with a new level of granularity.

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