This guide supports sustainability systems and their assurance partners make decisions about when remote auditing practices are appropriate and desirable, and how to use new technology and data to both inform and then operationalize that choice. It aims to give practical advice based on experiences to date, both on the types of tools and data sources available, as well as some key considerations for successful integration of remote audit technology into assurance processes.

Effective engagement with small-scale producers is key to achieving fair and lasting outcomes. This guide offers practical support for sustainability systems and their partners to strengthen how they listen to, work with, and learn from producers across different contexts.Co-developed with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), it brings together tools and approaches developed in the past ten years. It focuses on helping organisations better understand producer priorities, build trust, and support more meaningful participation in decisions.

Bonsucro and Responsible Jewellery Council engaged Business & Human Rights consultancy twentyfifty Ltd to conduct a research project on learning and good practice from the experience of ISEAL Community Members in implementing Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). 

The Impact Alliance is a voluntary collaboration between sustainability initiatives sharing similar goals to provide oversight of and support in the development, maintenance, promotion and claiming of Impact Incentives and Impact Partnerships.The purpose of this policy is to outline the Impact Alliance’s governance structure and mechanisms and can be made available to interested parties upon request.

This document outlines the approach taken by the Leather Impact Accelerator (LIA) Impact Partnership Pilot project, exploring Impact Partnership Incentives. While Impact Incentives work in a similar way to existing book & claim systems by rewarding already certified producers, Impact Partnership Incentives allow brands and retailers to support on-the-ground Program Partners to help producers transition towards best practices and certification.

The Impact Alliance project was designed to test the feasibility of “Impact Incentives” and “Impact Partnership Incentives” as innovative market-driven working models to scale and improve sustainability performance at landscape levels. The aim was to have a validated model that can be scaled up and offered for use with other commodities and other ISEAL standards, becoming an important sustainability impact accelerator for the sourcing areas of a growing number of industries.This document provides lessons learnt and insights gained over the course of the project. 

This guidance equips sustainability systems with practical tips on how they can make their impact claims more meaningful and effective with confidence and accuracy.

Better Cotton, in collaboration with its Pakistan Programme Partners, developed and piloted a farm-level wage sampling tool in Pakistan and collect baseline wage data from farmworkers in cotton production. This report summarises key findings, cross-sectoral learnings, and considers the opportunities for continued collaboration.The project ran from July 2024 to April 2025, supported by the ISEAL Innovations Fund.

Download the notes from the Inclusion & empowerment breakout session at the ISEAL Global Sustainability Symposium 2024.

ISEAL Accreditation Members choose a rigorous approach to improvement by demonstrating compliance with ISO/IEC 17011:2017 and implementing ISEAL’s Community Member Requirements. Organisations can only claim to be ISEAL Accreditation Members when they have met the ISEAL Community Member Requirements and demonstrated adherence to ISO/IEC 17011:2017 in accordance with this procedure.The Independent Evaluation Procedure for ISEAL Accreditation Members defines how organisations apply for, and maintain, ISEAL Accreditation Member status under ISEAL’s compliance programme.

ISEAL Community Members can claim to be ISEAL Code Compliant only when they have demonstrated adherence to the baseline and improvement criteria of each of ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice in accordance with the processes and definitions in this procedure.

This document presents the performance metrics and data sources included in the Hybrid Community-based Monitoring System (HCMS) that was built by the

This roadmap is developed to provide a pathway for all members of the Indonesia Water Stewardship Network (IWSN) to achieve the vision and mission of the network which has been aligned with the vision and mission of AWS Global Strategy. The roadmap acts as work program of IWSN with a 3 year timeline, which aims to:

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.

This round is now closed. In August 2025 The ISEAL Innovations Fund invited Expressions of Interest for projects that respond to the theme: Market mechanisms for transferring value to small-scale producers and SMEs.This Call for EOIs document contains all the information our members need to apply. Please note: EOIs must be submitted by an ISEAL Community Member, though non-member organisations can be named as project lead. Please also find links to download a brief Summary of this Call, as well as additional guidance documents for this funding round.

This document describes the M3 Partnership Integrated Assessment Protocol (M3 IAP), a tool designed to allow mine sites to be assessed against multiple site-level standards in a single audit, supporting identification of alignment across standards, and promoting demonstration of conformity with multiple standards with greater efficiency and reduced cost.

This Guidance document has been developed to facilitate the use of the Integrated Assessment Protocol (IAP), a tool designed to allow mine sites to be assessed against multiple site-level standards in a single audit, supporting identification of alignment across standards, and promoting demonstration of conformity with multiple standards with greater efficiency and reduced cost.

The Integrated Assessment Protocol (IAP) tool was designed to allow mine sites to be assessed against multiple site-level standards in a single audit. This document provides a summary of two pilots undertaken to test and improve the IAP tool, with case studies and lessons learned, and next steps.

The M3 Partnership Integrated Assessment Protocol (M3 IAP) tool was designed to allow mine sites to be assessed against multiple site-level standards in a single audit, supporting identification of alignment across standards, and promoting demonstration of conformity with multiple standards with greater efficiency and reduced cost.

ISEAL and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) organised an interactive workshop to foster dialogue and mutual learning on trade and sustainability, focusing on concrete pathways for policymakers and stakeholders to leverage credible sustainability standards in trade policy. This one-day interactive workshop brought together policymakers from developed and developing countries, trade experts, multilateral agencies, NGOs, and representatives from voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) organisations.

Women’s labour and expertise underpins the cocoa and coffee sectors, with women representing 40%-70% of the workforce. Yet, their contribution is often hidden and undervalued. Women face challenges in accessing productive resources, including extension and advisory services, credit and land. Social norms result in high labour and time burdens for women while limiting their participation in decision-making in households, organisations and communities.

The newly developed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) requires companies to track and address human rights issues in their supply chains – including living income. The case describes the process of negotiation around the CSDDD and shares lessons on advocacy and policy development.

This document includes considerations and a set of guiding questions designed to support the inclusion of the indicators in the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) systems of Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) and other organisations.

Many sustainability systems are testing and implementing different strategies to improve their sustainability performance and to  become more effective in tackling some of the world's most pressing issues. It is becoming clear that there is added value in adopting strategies that address the wider system. These systemic strategies can help organisations have a lasting impact within their context.

In May 2024, ISEAL, in partnership with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), hosted a webinar focused on the integration of voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) into trade policy as a tool to advance sustainability goals. Targeting actors across the trade sector, the webinar zeroed in on free trade agreements (FTAs) and presented our jointly produced research.