Governments

ISEAL supports governments and policy-makers as they step up their commitments to sustainable production, investment, trade and consumption.

Governments can use sustainability systems in several ways, including to:

  • develop sustainable trade policies and more resilient supply chains 
  • steer and implement sustainable public procurement.

Governments can also work with sustainability systems by:

  • providing support programmes for businesses at home and abroad
  • setting minimum or aspirational sustainability criteria
  • using compliance data as evidence of regulatory compliance.

Do you work for a government looking to compare and benchmark sustainability systems? Have a look at our Sustainability Benchmarking Good Practice Guide.

Interested in how the ISEAL Standard-Setting Code supports the conformity of standards to the WTO’s TBT Agreement’s Code of Good Practice? Download our 2017 legal opinion.

Maximising the value of sustainability systems as sustainable development tools

In 2015, almost every government in the world signed up to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The world has ambitious targets to achieve – and governments recognise that effective sustainability systems have an important role to play. 

It’s critical that policymakers can identify which systems are built on credible practices – the ones that make an impact, operate effectively and have robust oversight mechanisms.

We help governments identify systems underpinned by credible practices, and how best to work with them to maximise their value as sustainable development tools. 

We also support our members to demonstrate their role as sustainable development tools, supporting measurement and metric alignment across and between systems.