Voluntary sustainability standards Debate: Confused Consumers - An evening about certification and...
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Voluntary sustainability standards Debate: Confused Consumers - An evening about certification and sustainable food consumption Dr. Verina Ingram 18 June
Voluntary sustainability standards Debate: Confused Consumers -
An evening about certification and sustainable food consumption Dr.
Verina Ingram 18 June 2015, Forum, Wageningen
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What are voluntary sustainability standards VSS? Voluntary,
usually third party-assessed, rules/norms/ standards/guidelines and
characteristics relating to environmental, social, economic,
ethical, quality and food safety issues Market driven - developed
by private and public sector Adopted by companies to demonstrate
performance of organizations/products to specific goals Address
hotspots along (global) supply chains Often purport to go beyond
legal, technical standards Often developed by groups of
stakeholders and experts
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What are voluntary sustainability standards VSS? Practices or
criteria for how a resource is sustainably grown, harvested,
processed and traded A verification process - "certification" - to
evaluate compliance with the standard Often a traceability process
to track a product Resulting in a consumer-orientated label or
business- to-business
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VSS
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Growth in standards & products >459 ecolabels since late
1980s, 197 countries, 25 sectors
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Identify & compare standards by country, sector &
hotspot Self assess readiness and roadmap to meeting a
standard
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Growth in coverage
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Transforming markets Penetrated mainstream consumer habits and
products
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VSS in context not in isolation ! Collaboration private,
government, CSO, donor, research to support producers (groups),
Collaboration private, government, CSO, donor, research to support
producers (groups), includes Capacity building Producer and other
stakeholder grouping Information management systems Access to
information, services, equipment, farm inputs etc. Community,
educational and health infrastructure
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The impacts of VSS so far? 1 Unrepresentational ? difficult to
gauge where proportional or balanced stakeholder influence occurs
in committees Improved accountability by appointing governors
through fair and competitive board elections Better checks and
balances: VSS structures help separate executive, legislative and
judicial functions Equity improved and more equal opportunities by
introducing & formalising voting structures and financial
supports voice for otherwise marginalized stakeholders.
Subsidiarity increased: where content and indicators owned and
developed at national/regional level, stakeholders empowered to
determine terms of participation Creating new opportunities for
stakeholder participation in supply chain decision making
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The impacts of VSS so far? Caveats: Many standards time phased
Sustainability implies internalising externalities Improved
effectiveness on chain governance through monitoring &
evaluations against criteria Inefficient: heavy reliance on
external funds for financial survival. Coverage : Majority of
products sold in developed consumer markets fewer consumers and
uptake in BRICs and developing countries i.e. RSPO Cost and
benefits business cases; wide variation, ie price premiums and
profits and long timescales ie cocoa 6 years Cost benefit
distribution generally higher cost burden for implementation and
maintenance by producers ie. Cocoa Strengthening the reliability
and validity of market claims through increasingly independent
monitoring and enforcement processes 2
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Re-distribution of power, profits and decision making in global
chains both positive and negative Continued persistent oversupply
of standard-compliant production: supply vs demand Production is
concentrated in mainly advanced, export-oriented economies and
products esp. Latin America Highly variable extent of positive
environmental, social and economic impacts per product, VSS and
region i.e. IDH & partners successfully contributed to scaling
sustainability initiatives but had a modest impact on the
sustainability commodity chains (IOB 2014) Average criteria of VSS
declining as standards target mainstream markets focus ILO labour
standards & productivity VSS contribute to the green economy
but cannot be assumed to deliver sustainable development outcomes
The impacts of VSS so far? 3
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Intended but unspoken impacts? Security of supply Public
relations Reputation & risk management Supplier relations
Bottom line - outperforming the competition ? de Giovanni 2012,
Savitz 2012
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To sum it up...... Over the past 30-40 years, certification and
standards have helped create awareness about sustainability
throughout the value chain from producers to consumers. They have
helped focus attention on people, planet and profit. At their best,
they have been science - based, created by multi - stakeholder
groups and focus on measuring performance and continuous
improvement. They have shaped consensus about key issues as well as
defined acceptable performance levels. None of them achieve all of
these things, however, and some achieve none of them Jason Clay,
WWF Berlin, May 2015
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Issues
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Ways forward ? Better measures of what matters - for those to
whom it matters