The Landscape Monitoring Framework of the socio-economic dimension (LMS) is a tool that provides practical guidance to assess the socio-economic status of a landscape to monitor progress and facilitates action for development. The LMS targets the stakeholders of the landscape initiative, and in particular the initiators of the initiative, as the main user group.

Sustainability systems are market-based tools designed to address the most pressing social and environmental challenges of our time. They define responsible practices, assess the implementation of these practices, and measure and communicate results. Sustainability systems are used in most sectors worldwide to improve social and environmental performance. Download this one page, full description of a sustainability system.

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.

ISEAL’s 2019 Annual Report reflects on the year’s most significant developments and achievements to support credible practices. Download a pdf of the report.

This webinar shows how a focus on data and information management in assurance can improve both the effectiveness of the assurance process and the value of that process for certifying enterprise, supply chain actors and the scheme owners themselves.

Global sustainability challenges are complex problems and determining the best strategies to bring about lasting improvements in sustainability performance remains a core challenge for sustainability systems. Many are increasingly experimenting with a wide range of strategies to reach their sustainability goals. However, the effectiveness of these strategies is highly dependent on the context in which they are applied. 

ISEAL is pleased to announce that the Copper Mark has been approved as an ISEAL Community Member. We are excited to be working with an initiative that broadens our understanding of the mining and minerals sector and look forward to Copper Mark’s participation in the ISEAL community.

The context in which sustainability systems operate significantly influences the scale, depth and durability of their impacts. This is an important consideration when designing new strategies to improve sustainability performance. To provide support in this area, we have developed the following resources:

This series of papers was developed as part of an exploratory workstream investigating the role and maturity of monitoring and measurement in different landscape and jurisdictional initiatives. The papers are targeted towards landscape and jurisdictional practitioners and focus on the practicalities of measurement for landscape and jurisdictional initiatives.

Aquaculture improvement projects (AIPs) have recently emerged as a new form of market-based and non-state governance in the aquaculture sector (Bottema, 2019). They embody multi-stakeholder efforts that leverage the influence of the private sector to drive improvements in aquaculture production and ensure that these changes endure through improved policy and management strategies (Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), 2019).

In recent years, we’ve seen a growing interest from sustainability systems in tackling gender inequalities through their schemes. A 2022 ISEAL-CGIAR Gender Equality Initiative scoping study tried to understand how some of ISEAL's Community Members are integrating gender into their schemes. It highlighted the important role systems can play in reducing gender inequalities and improving women's empowerment.

This report summarizes the key lessons learnt by each of the key stakeholder groups from participation in the ASC Improver Programme pilot. The ASC standards set principles, criteria, indicators, and measurable performance levels for environmentally and socially responsible aquaculture. However, producers carry the responsibility to implement these standards at their farms, where smaller operations may have financial or technical constraints.

ISEAL welcomes the Commission's Proposal for a Directive as regards empowering consumers for the green transition through better protection against unfair practices and better information. We share the objective that sustainability or green claims in the EU marketplace should be clear, relevant, and substantiated to enable consumers to make more informed and sustainable purchasing decisions.

In 2013, ISEAL launched the Credibility Principles, which provide an international reference for defining the foundations of credible practices for sustainability standards. Since mid-May 2020, we are leading consultations that will expand the scope of the Credibility Principles beyond sustainability standards to a wider range of systems, such as data-based and landscape-based approaches as well as update the scope of the Credibility Principles to reflect current and future trends affecting standards and similar systems.

This document contains a log of the feedback received on the first draft of the Credibility Principles (V1.1) during the consultation period from 14 May to 31 July 2020, as well as how the ISEAL secretariat responded.

To voice our support for credible claims that are transparent, clear and accurate, ISEAL developed communication notes shared with the EU Council and EU Parliament to outline our key concerns and points of interest.

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.