This year’s UN climate talks shift the focus from commitments to action on the ground. With the climate crisis accelerating amid geopolitical uncertainty, tangible collective action between sustainability systems, governments, researchers, businesses and civil society has never been more vital. Through the ISEAL Innovations Fund, sustainability systems are developing measurable...

How can national systems, voluntary sustainability initiatives and international market requirements better complement one another to build more sustainable and transparent supply chains? A new report from an ISEAL partner workshop in Accra, Ghana, identifies practical opportunities, drawing on the country’s timber and cocoa sectors.

ISEAL members met in Glasgow to share knowledge, exchange ideas and explore ways to strengthen sustainability systems. Their shared aim: sustainability systems that work better together, show stronger outcomes and deliver real value for producers, while keeping pace with rising demand for data, regulatory change and climate and nature pressures.

ISEAL defines the core values and practices that underpin credible and effective sustainability systems. Our definitions and supporting resources help those systems identify opportunities to improve, help businesses identify organisations that can support their sustainability goals and show researchers and policymakers how such approaches can address sustainability challenges. With the...

Brazil has provided decades of experience in how market-based sustainability systems can work together in practice. Building on this, ISEAL brought together sustainability systems, businesses, government, producers and civil society in São Paulo to ask what has worked, what barriers remain and what needs to happen to build a more...

As climate change intensifies, so does the need for corporate climate action. In the last five years, over 9,000 companies have set targets through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and many more have made net-zero pledges under other frameworks. Some companies have made impressive progress in cutting their direct...

What can a cocoa pricing policy in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana teach us about supporting living incomes? A recent learning event co-hosted by Evidensia, the Living Income Community of Practice (LICOP) and ISEAL drew on new research to explore lessons from the Living Income Differential, a US$400 per metric ton...

We are seeking input through a one-month public consultation on ISEAL’s new Credibility Tools Maintenance Procedure, which aims to ensure our definitions of credible practice remain trustworthy and globally recognised.

With the publication of ISEAL’s Annual Review 2025, we look back on a year of collaboration, innovation and progress advancing credible sustainability practices.

From the approaching super El Niño to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), global supply chains are facing pressures from many directions, and those pressures are not felt equally. For a smallholder farmer experiencing repeated drought-driven crop failures, a business responding to new due diligence requirements, or a consumer confronted with...

Indigenous knowledge and participation are helping shape more effective sustainability systems. Projects supported by the ISEAL Innovations Fund are working with Indigenous communities to inform approaches to mine rehabilitation, impact verification and landscape monitoring.

Supported by the Walmart Foundation, ISEAL’s new 2.5-year project will work with sustainability systems and landscape initiatives to strengthen the use and recognition of credible sustainability data. It will help meet the growing demand for trusted sustainability information from companies, investors and regulators while delivering greater value for producers and...

Earlier this year, ISEAL and IDH published two new guidance documents to help companies and verification providers turn living wage-gap data into reliable evidence for meaningful action.

Monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) are critical to understanding whether sustainability systems are creating the change they claim to achieve. This September, ISEAL’s ‘Monitoring, evaluation and learning essentials for sustainability systems’ training course will help participants build the practical skills needed to develop robust MEL systems.

We are pleased to announce that the Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC) has been approved as an ISEAL Community Member. CSC's experience in advancing sustainability assurance and certification across the concrete value chain and its commitment to continuous improvement, will bring valuable perspectives to our growing membership community. We look forward to...

We are delighted to announce that Zentera Wool Company has been approved as an ISEAL Community Member. Zentera’s experience in advancing wool certification systems and its commitment to continuous improvement will bring valuable perspectives to our growing membership community. We look forward to working with Zentera to strengthen sustainability systems...

Every day, people consume products that have stories beginning thousands of kilometres away. The coffee we drink and the clothes we wear are the end points of journeys that cross borders and pass through the hands of countless farmers and workers.