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:

There is a growing market demand and pressure on companies to source and invest in sustainability as they adapt to the new regulatory and reporting environment concerning due diligence, deforestation and sustainability reporting. This is generating increasing interest by companies and the finance sector in many countries to manage their critical sustainability and supply chain risks and show contributions to sustainability outcomes (such as climate mitigation and equity).

This research briefing explores the growing use of voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) in free trade agreements (FTAs), and the challenges and opportunities for scaling the use of VSS in trade more generally. Based on a partnership between ISEAL and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), we explore the use of voluntary market based instruments in promoting sustainable trade, production and consumption.

This report has been developed to support voluntary sustainability standard setting organizations (VSS organizations), businesses, or industry groups that operate, or are seeking to partner with local third-party organizations to develop company or multistakeholder grievance mechanisms in accordance with the principles set out in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP).This document will illustrate how third-party partners can support these organizations in the design and implementation of grievance mechanisms, and provide a practical framework for selectin

In 2019, we launched a review of the principles to find out how they have been used and adopted. The outcome of the review will decide whether the principles need to be revised to adapt to new international frameworks and norms, changing stakeholder expectations or innovations in sustainability tools, and, if so, the scope of the revision. This document contains information about the review objectives, process and opportunities for involvement.

In 2019, ISEAL launched a review of both the Impacts Code and Standard-Setting Code. The results of the review will inform the revision of the codes in 2020. This document contains information about the review objectives, process and opportunities for involvement.

This is a consultation draft for the revised good practice guide for benchmarking of voluntary sustainability systems. The consultation runs from 31 October to 15 December 2024. More details on the consultation.

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

This report will  discuss the challenges the M3 Partnership faced developing a shared approach to stakeholder engagement, explore the extent to which the higher-level objective of reducing duplicative or competitive communications and reducing stakeholder confusion and fatigue has been achieved throughout the project, and outline lessons learned.

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 discusses core concepts, such as consent and rights, that underpin governance of data use and sharing. It proposes general principles and steps for a reasoned and documented approach to data rights, control and sharing for the ISEAL community. The purpose of this guidance is to help sustainability systems: 1) establish certified entities’ rights to data related to certified activities; and 2) responsibly use and share those data.

This document provides an overview of the development of the ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Sustainability Systems (the ISEAL Code). It includes a summary of the consultations on the first and second drafts of the ISEAL Code, and an overview of key changes from the existing Codes of Good Practice. We would like to thank everyone who provided feedback on the drafts, and to those who supported the consultations by engaging with events and sharing information about the consultations with colleagues and stakeholders.

There are different ways in which sustainability systems can operate at landscape level. The ATLA project was designed to explore some of the 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 project pilots, in Turkey and Pakistan, provided practical insights for these strategic decisions in the case of Better Cotton.

The Mining, Minerals, and Metals Partnership (M3 Partnership) is a collaboration of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC), ResponsibleSteel, and Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM). The M3 Partnership aims to identify opportunities for alignment and collective action to drive improvement in social and environmental performance. This report summarizes lessons learned across four key M3 Projects, including the Integrated Assessment Protocol (IAP) Tool, IAP Pilots, Greenhouse Gas (GHG), and Due Diligence Projects

This report 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.

This cross-sectoral learning brief distils the in-depth reports and tools from the M3 Partnership that can be found on the M3 Partnership website or ISEAL website.

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.

Benchmarking guide for analysing or evaluating sustainability initiatives or performance.

There are a myriad of sustainability claims in the market today. The ISEAL Sustainability Claims Good Practice Guide was developed through a multi-stakeholder consultation process to define good practice for scheme owners in setting and managing claims about their standards system.

Read about the Living Wage Working Group that ran in 2021 and 2022 for Certification and Auditing Systems.