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. 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 briefing note captures broader insights from a project ISEAL implemented with support from the German International Development Agency GIZ in 2018-2019, in which we explored the implications and linkages between corporate due diligence processes and voluntary sustainability standards.

SCOPE is a geo-design tool that enables users to assess multiple outcomes related to commodity production and alternative policies including total production, water availability, water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and land conversion. The tool allows for examining on-farm policy compliance and explore outcomes at local to landscape levels. This document presents how SCOPE can provide important information to certification stakeholders on how an area could perform against a standard (or is performing against a standard) at the local, landscape, or jurisdictional level.

ISEAL, alongside a broad coalition of certification schemes, civil society organisations and businesses, has co-signed a joint letter urging EU policymakers to relaunch trilogue negotiations The EU Green Claims Directive (GCD). 

This methodology aims to support national commodity associations and other relevant public bodies to aggregate producer-level data using the Delta indicators to assess and report on the sustainability performance of the commodity’s production at country level.

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 document summarizes the consolidated learnings from the different pilots of the Delta indicators.

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 report reports on the pilot phase of the Landscape Assessment Framework in the context of the Sustainable Cocoa Landscapes project in San Martin, Peru. The social indicators that have been proposed by Max Havelaar / Flocert based on the prioritized social issues for the landscapes (see documents "social study of the landscapes" and "social issues in the Mariscal Caceres landscape") have been applied as a test in the landscape. The process followed for this pilot phase is summarized in paragraph 2, and the process of validation of the indicators is presented in paragraph 3.

This user manual has been created as part of the Tech4Communities: Hybrid Community-based Monitoring system (HCMS) project. The project seeks to create a hybrid “remote” and “on the ground” monitoring and evaluation programme to support data gathering and management at a landscape level.

This document describes the requirements Accreditation Organisations need to meet to be ISEAL Accreditation Members.

A public summary explaining the need for the Infrastructure Sustainability Intelligence Tool (ISIT), the value it brings to infrastructure stakeholders, and its methodology.  ISIT was developed by GIB as part of a project supported by the ISEAL Innovations Fund.

This executive summary offers lessons learned on how interoperability of sustainability standards in the metals, minerals and metals (MMM) sectors can help standards systems in other sectors. In particular, it explores how MMM, forestry and agriculture standards can enhance collaboration and improve sustainability impacts through interoperability.

ISEAL Board and Committee members and ISEAL staff should conduct themselves at all times in accordance with good professional judgement for the benefit of ISEAL and in such manner as to not create a conflict of interest or appearance of such conflict.

This report presents the findings and recommendations from the Blueprint Project. Blueprint describes the sustainability status of municipalities with a combination of high-precision visual classification of land cover types, and interviews with a representative sample of local stakeholders to reflect the economic, social, and environmental reality on the ground. It illustrates sustainability challenges and flags opportunities from the perspective of the inhabitants of a territory.

This document summarises a use case piloted as part of the Information and Data Standard for Sustainability project. It is for people interested in increasing the value and integrity of the data and information their organisation curates and manages. The ISEAL Core Metadata Set was developed through the Information and Data Standard for Sustainability project, led by the Forest Stewardship Council in partnership with ISEAL.

In 2019, Gold Standard received a grant from the ISEAL Innovations Fund to develop guidance for accounting and reporting the emissions of certified commodities, in close collaboration with a group of ISEAL Community Members.

This document presents the performance metrics and data sources included in the Hybrid Community-based Monitoring System (HCMS) that was built by the Tech4Communities project in Ghana, using the LandScale assessment framework. 

The representatives of IAF, ISEAL, UNDP and the Conformity Assessment Body Associations (IIOC, IQNET and TIC Council) have signed a joint statement about the role of standards and accredited conformity assessment on sustainability assurance. This collaborative effort aims to address urgent sustainability challenges by emphasising the vital role of consensus-based standards and accredited conformity assessment in driving positive impact.

With the final trilogue on the Green Claims Directive now postponed to 23 June, ISEAL, together with ECOCERT, FTAO, IFOAM Organics Europe, and TIC Council, has issued a joint statement urging EU policymakers to preserve the ambition and integrity of this vital legislation.

This methodology aims to support national commodity associations and other relevant public bodies to aggregate producer-level data using the Delta indicators to assess and report on the sustainability performance of the commodity’s production at country level.

The power of landscape initiatives lies in aligning interests and priorities of key stakeholders, including local communities, practitioners, market actors, and local governments around collective goals, actions, and investment so that they are better able to finance and address the system conditions needed to achieve long-term sustainability impacts at a landscape scale.

This document provides a brief summary of the Soy Impact Incentives Pilot from June 2022.

This is a conceptual framework which outlines the justification and process for the development of the ISEAL Common Core Indicators. This work began as part of ISEAL's Developing and Improving Poverty Impacts project (DIPI).

ISEAL sent a letter of welcome and congratulations to Denmark on assuming the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, for the term beginning 1 July 2025. We acknowledge Denmark's timely agenda of "A strong Europe in a changing world," and note a close alignment between the work for a secure, competitive, and green Europe and ISEAL's mission to harness credible sustainability standards for measurable real-world impact.