Poverty, low, unpredictable prices and unequal trading relationships affect small-scale producers of cocoa, cotton, and seafood. These challenges are exacerbated by regulation and climate change.Despite the differences between sectors, a living income approach and strategies to close the income gap can enable a decent standard of living. Working towards a living income for small-scale producers can contribute to social, cultural, and environmental benefits and support wider efforts to tackle the underlying cause of poverty.

Small-scale producers are at the sharp end of supply chains. They can - and do - face significant challenges in achieving and maintain a decent standard of living. ISEAL has been engaging with stakeholders about equity and livelihoods in sustainable supply chains. We have opened up conversations on improved incomes for producers within supply chains and unpacked the approaches that work to address the inequities that underpin persistent poverty.

The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) was established in 2006, through a multi-stakeholder collaboration involving labour groups, communities, purchasing and mining companies and NGOs. Indigenous Rights Holders IRMA works towards protecting people and the environment directly affected by mining.

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.

Low wages persist in the banana sector, and workers struggle to make a decent living. Even in contexts of certified value chains, workers can experience a gap between their earnings and living wage benchmarks. In 2023, Fairtrade International launched three mechanisms to contribute to closing living wage gaps for banana workers (see page 3 for details). In addition, the Fairtrade Minimum Price and Fairtrade Premium benefit both farmers and workers. Together, these tools aim to increase incomes for banana producers and workers in certified value chains.

Small-scale producers play a vital role in sustainable production and land use — but too often, they lack the resources and economic resilience needed to adopt more sustainable practices.This case study highlights practical approaches that are helping bridge this gap by creating incentives that bring climate, environmental and social benefits, including premiums, incentives and recognising and rewarding community stewardship.Part of a series exploring promising approaches for enabling small-scale producer market access and shifts to sustainable production:

Small-scale producers play a vital role in sustainable production and land use — but too often, they lack access to the resources they need to adopt more sustainable practices and participate in global value chains, limiting their ability to achieve a decent standard of living.

Improving the livelihoods and well-being of smallholders, small-scale producers and workers is a priority for many sustainability systems. This case study looks at some of the innovative ways sustainability systems and partners supported by the ISEAL Innovations Fund are enabling small-scale producers to benefit from accessing markets and participating in global value chains.

Small-scale fishers in Indonesia face structural barriers which limit their participation in the fisheries sector, including limited access to technology, invisibility in data and policy making and marginalisation in decision-making. Although Indonesia is the second largest aquaculture and capture fisheries producing country in the world (after China) and 80% of its fishing industry depend on small-scale fisheries, fishers represent 25% of people who live below the poverty line in Indonesia.

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).

Sustainability systems are uniquely positioned to advance human rights protections for workers in global supply chains through the identification and verification of risks and instances of forced labour. This core and often elusive step of due diligence is critical to ensure compliance with emerging human rights legislation and credibility of sustainability labels and claims in the global market. 

This slide deck provides an overview of the Good Practice, Better Finance project. 

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.

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.

In 2021, ISEAL worked with seven different sustainability schemes to conduct ten field-based pilot audits in different country-sector combinations around the world. The objectives of these pilot audits were two-fold: to provide participating schemes the opportunity to test the use of the Salary Matrix and accompanying IDH Verification Guidelines with certified entities and to provide IDH learnings and recommendations for these pilots to improve these Roadmap’s tools.

A document describing the key findings from Training Needs and Landscape  Assessment of Shrimp Sector in East Java, Indonesia, as part of the Innovations Fund project Integration of Seafood Certification and Jurisdictional Assurance Models, supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

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 brief presents practical strategies for strengthening monitoring approaches within voluntary sustainability systems, with a focus on promoting inclusion and equity. Drawing on experiences from ISEAL members, it provides actionable insights and examples that can inform more effective and inclusive monitoring and evaluation practices. These learnings are also relevant for businesses, governments, and civil society organisations aiming to support more just and equitable markets.

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.

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.

In 2023, the Global Living Wage Coalition commissioned the Anker Research Institute and ISEAL to do a needs assessment aimed at gathering stakeholder views on the readiness to advance on living wages for tea workers in Assam and West Bengal. 

This report assesses leading metrics for measuring and reporting performance over time and across multiple spatial scales. It examines six critical sustainability issues: deforestation, biodiversity, water use, forced labour, poverty, and greenhouse gas emissions. The research supports sustainability systems in making data-driven outcome claims and provides insight into evaluating metric suitability. The report focuses on applicability of metrics and data sources, best practices, and associated limitations and trade-offs.

Between 29 September and 5 October 2021, Helvetas conducted a stakeholder consultation of the project "Sustainable Cocoa Landscapes in San Martin". The consultation was carried out through face-to-face workshops in the different districts of the province. This resulted in the prioritization of social issues to be taken forward by the project. 

Experts from ISEAL, and ISEAL members discuss what our research is telling us about the reach, contribution and impacts of standards on smallholder farmers and what this means for future innovations and partnerships.