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 are now looking to support the seafood sector in exploring income and livelihood strategies of small-scale fishers and fishing communities and considering opportunities for collaboration around equity and livelihoods.

In 2024/25 ISEAL supported its members to reflect and take action towards embedding equity and producer empowerment within their systems and practices. To date, this support has included: the development of an equity framework; the strengthening of equity within the ISEAL Code of Good Practice; a guidance note for embedding equity within monitoring and evaluation systems; and grant funding for specific projects to advance equity.

In 2024/25 ISEAL supported its members to reflect and take action towards embedding equity and producer empowerment within their systems and practices. To date, this support has included: the development of an equity framework; the strengthening of equity within the ISEAL Code of Good Practice; a guidance note for embedding equity within monitoring and evaluation systems; and grant funding for specific projects to advance equity.

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 farmers face several structural barriers that limit their power, income and participation in global value chains. Founded in 2009, Producers Direct is a farmer-owned nonprofit which brings together a network of over one million small producers, located across East Africa and Latin America. Recognising these structural barriers, Producers Direct has innovated a platform that enables farmers to co-design the tools and services they need.

This learning brief was produced by FSC as part of their Creating partnerships for research and testing impact verification frameworks in Indigenous and traditional communities project, supported by the ISEAL Innovations Fund, Swiss State S

Vietnam is the world’s second largest coffee exporter, with smallholders earning relatively high incomes. This is the result of a steady development of the coffee sector over several decades. This case describes how it came about, and yields valuable lessons for living income practitioners in other contexts.

Jointly commissioned by Evidensia, The Living Income Community of Practice (LICOP), and ISEAL, this report examines three in-depth case studies to examine how prominent living income policy initiatives have evolved, what motivated key actors to support or resist them, and what practitioners can draw from these experiences to apply in their own work. It also proposes an analytical framework that researchers can use to construct comparable cases.

The Good Practice, Better Finance project is an ISEAL Innovations Fund project that aims to develop and test methodologies, as well as improve monitoring tools, which would allow for improved access to affordable finance for farmers. This improved access would be through reward systems based on the integration of farmers’ risk management and sustainability strategies with financial institutions’ own risk assessment frameworks.

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.

Equity is defined as ensuring fairness in the distribution of resources, opportunities, and benefits. Equity requires that all members of society, including future generations, have access to the same rights and opportunities to maintain a decent quality of life. Equity is fundamental to sustainability; without equity, it is not possible to effectively and sustainably uphold human rights, improve livelihoods, or protect the environment.

The ‘first mile’ – the journey from the production farm to the first aggregation or processing point – is a critical yet often overlooked segment of agricultural supply chains. This report, produced by Proforest and commissioned by ISEAL, aims to shed light on the actors operating in this space and the dynamics that shape it, drawing on examples from cocoa, coffee, rubber and palm oil across diverse regions.

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. 

In 2019, the ISEAL Innovations Fund awarded a grant to Bonsucro to collaboratively develop and test methodologies to help financial service providers improve how they assess their agricultural clients’ sustainability performance, to enable access to better financing opportunities for farmers who produce sustainably. Project partners included the Better Cotton Initiative, and the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS).

In 2019, the ISEAL Innovations Fund awarded a grant to Bonsucro to collaborat

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.

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.

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.

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.