ISEAL welcomes the EU Commission's proposal for a Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDDD) as a necessary and pivotal step towards mainstreaming sustainability in corporate practices and fostering corporate accountability. Within the proposal, certification and verification schemes, as well as industry and multi-stakeholder initiatives play a key role in organising compliance with the proposed CSDDD.

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.

ISEAL seeks an experienced consultant or research team to map and analyse the current European and global landscape for corporate sustainability reporting and disclosure, including regulatory and market-based approaches, to inform ISEAL's strategy and on implications for voluntary sustainability systems and similar systems. Deadline for proposals: Thursday, 2 January 2025 COB.

Interpretation of the clause 6.4.3 on recognition of existing standards.

The latest version (version 6, revised in December 2014) of the ISEAL Standard-Setting Code of Good Practice, for Setting Social and Environmental Standards.

In response to the EU proposal for a Green Claims Directive, this statement intends to go further in establishing robust credibility criteria, by promoting multistakeholder participation, and supporting clear pre-approval and verification processes for sustainability schemes. 

This checklist distils key steps in the guidance for setting up and implementing a sustainability benchmarking exercise or programme.

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.

Going further in establishing robust credibility criteria, promoting multistakeholder participation, and supporting clear pre-approval and verification processes for sustainability schemes. This paper reiterates our longstanding support for the Commission’s efforts to introduce more stringent regulations to tackle greenwashing, enabling consumers to make informed purchasing decisions. We would also like to share our views on the proposal and suggest some amendments to make it even more effective.

This guidance document offers suggestions as input for consideration for the recent EUDR guidelines on the use of certification. ISEAL has built a broad-based consensus around what constitutes credible operating practices for sustainability certification schemes. Our Code of Good Practice captures this consensus in a publicly available normative document against which all ISEAL Code compliant members have been evaluated.

Please use this form to submit comments and suggestions on particular sections of the revised guide for benchmarking sustainability systems.  Completed forms should be emailed to Maira Devisscher, Innovations Manager – maira@isealalliance.org by 15 December 2024.  

Please use this form to submit comments and suggestions on sections of the revised ISEAL Chain of Custody Definitions and Models Guidance. Completed forms should be emailed to Josh Taylor, Traceability Manager – Josh@isealalliance.org by 11 January 2025.

The latest version of ISEAL's Training and Events Terms & Conditions.

ISEAL可信度原则2版 2021 ISEAL Credibility Principles V2 2021 - Chinese 

This series of collective position papers (a list of the supporting organisations can be found on the back-page of each paper) aim to provide companies and the organisations that support them with accessible and consistent guidance for effective investment and action in landscapes and jurisdictions. The series provides a common baseline set of expectations on which the practitioner community is building more detailed guidance and tools.

The representatives of IAF, ISEAL, UNDP and the Conformity Assessment Body Associations (IIOC, IQNET and TIC Council) have signed a joint statement about the role of standards and accredited conformity assessment on sustainability assurance. This collaborative effort aims to address urgent sustainability challenges by emphasising the vital role of consensus-based standards and accredited conformity assessment in driving positive impact.

Statement by the Global Living Wage Coalition about what these organisations have committed to, how they define living wage and why they have decided to focus on it in their respective labour standards.

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).

A short paper describing the key learnings from ResponsibleSteel's Recognition Process. 

This report presents the findings and recommendations from the Blueprint Project. Blueprint describes the sustainability status of municipalities with a combination of high-precision visual classification of land cover types, and interviews with a representative sample of local stakeholders to reflect the economic, social, and environmental reality on the ground. It illustrates sustainability challenges and flags opportunities from the perspective of the inhabitants of a territory.

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.

The ISEAL Innovations Fund and Programme was launched in 2016 to create an enabling environment for innovation, new ideas and strategies to scale the impact, effectiveness, efficiency and inclusiveness of sustainability systems. This learning brief captures some of the key early lessons learned so far.

Sustainability systems are positioned to advance human rights protections in specific geographies and commodities through verification and remediation of human rights violations, such as forced and bonded labor. However to ensure impact, detecting those violations is central and often elusive. This report captures project learnings and shares general recommendations for those working to improve FBL detection in different sectors.

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), together with Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) and Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program (SFW), are piloting an improver programme to implement best management practices with the aim of improving farm and zonal management to mitigate critical production risks. This document identifies key lessons from this project.

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.