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:

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 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.

This brief examines how sustainability systems are seeking to improve livelihoods and market access for small-scale producers.It is part of a series exploring how sustainability systems supported by the Innovations Fund are evolving to respond to emerging issues and opportunities. 

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.

A Report produced for the ISEAL Alliance Innovations Fund project “Integrating new data to improve risk assessments and detection of forced labour vulnerability in agricultural supply chains”.

The ISEAL-funded research project Integrating new data to improve risk assessments and detection of forced labour in agricultural supply chains (2017 – 18) is an attempt to build the evidence base around monitoring and remediating forced labour in agricultural supply chains.

Empowering small-scale seafood producers is a cornerstone of a sustainable seafood future. Small-scale seafood producers have historically been overlooked, yet they are not marginal actors—they are crucial contributors to global food security, ocean governance, and wider sustainability goals.ISEAL is engaging with stakeholders across the seafood sector – producers, companies, investors, researchers and NGOs - to develop understanding and take action to address the inequities in seafood markets and adopt more inclusive approaches.

This report looks at the issues facing small certified producers and their expectations and experiences of certification, and explores how standards can address producers’ needs and priorities.

This briefing note shares insights and learnings from a series of semi-structured interviews ISEAL conducted with fourteen leading, global companies engaged in living wage actions.

A working paper for the project “New data to detect forced labour in agriculture”.