As part of its 2030 Strategy, Better Cotton has committed to strengthen impacts at farm level across the countries where it works and is currently setting ambitious global targets in key impact areas. In parallel, Better Cotton is exploring whether a landscape approach can deliver better impacts and efficiencies, to facilitate an evaluation of the potential of landscape approaches in the context of the BCSS, Better Cotton developed the Adaptation to Landscape Approach (ATLA) project.

Report on ISEAL member collaboration on shared impact reporting.

ISEAL has commissioned a systematic review being led by Carlos Oya and Dafni Skalidou on the effects of supply chain sustainability approaches on decent work outcomes in the agriculture, textile, and apparel sectors in low and middle income countries. The review aims at gaining a better understanding of what works to improve labour rights and conditions in these sectors, why, under what circumstances and for whom. For more information, please read the protocol for the review below.

The Modelling a Path to More Sustainable Landscapes project is a three-year effort to spatially analyze the baseline risk of commodity production and the role of sustainability policies to mitigate those risks. This document is for people interested in increasing the value and integrity of data and in assessing the potential impacts of policy decisions in terms of agriculture production and environmental outcomes.

The Modelling a Path to More Sustainable Landscapes project is a three-year effort to spatially analyse the baseline risk of commodity production and the role of sustainability policies to mitigate those risks. This document is for people interested in increasing the value and integrity of data and in assessing the potential impacts of policy decisions in terms of agriculture production and environmental outcomes.

The Modelling a Path to More Sustainable Landscapes project is a three-year effort to spatially analyse the baseline risk of commodity production and the role of sustainability policies to mitigate those risks.  This document is for people interested in increasing the value and integrity of data and in assessing the potential impacts of policy decisions in terms of agriculture production and environmental outcomes.

ISEAL has revised its Chain of Custody (CoC) Models and Definitions Guidance to improve clarity and consistency for stakeholders across sectors, reflecting major shifts in supply chain management. The updated guidance is intended to address new regulatory demands (e.g., EUDR, CSRD), technological advancements like blockchain, and the inclusion of additional CoC models such as Controlled Blending and Controlled Mass Balance.

In 2019, the ISEAL Innovations Fund awarded a grant to Bonsucro to collaboratively develop and test methodologies to help financial service providers improve how they assess their agricultural clients’ sustainability performance, to enable access to better financing opportunities for farmers who produce sustainably. Project partners included the Better Cotton Initiative, and the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS).

Tackling gender inequalities is becoming increasingly important for voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) and similar systems to address. Sustainability systems are looking to integrate gender into their standards and the management of their organisations. Sustainability systems that are not gender-responsive can result in unnecessary health and safety risks for women and girls, and lead to unequal impacts and unintended consequences.

The Impact Alliance is a voluntary collaboration between sustainability initiatives sharing similar goals to provide oversight of and support in the development, maintenance, promotion and claiming of Impact Incentives and Impact Partnerships. The purpose of this policy is to outline the Impact Alliance’s governance structure and mechanisms and can be made available to interested parties upon request.

This document presents the performance metrics and data sources included in the Hybrid Community-based Monitoring System (HCMS) that was built by the Tech4Communities project in Ghana, using the LandScale assessment framework. 

SCOPE is a geo-design tool that enables users to assess multiple outcomes related to commodity production and alternative policies including total production, water availability, water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and land conversion. The tool allows for examining on-farm policy compliance and explore outcomes at local to landscape levels. This document presents how SCOPE can provide important information to certification stakeholders on how an area could perform against a standard (or is performing against a standard) at the local, landscape, or jurisdictional level.

The IPM Coalition under the umbrella of the ISEAL Alliance created “Pesticides & Alternatives”. The multi-lingual tool will support pest control with less negative environmental and human impact. The APP is targeted for auditors, decision-makers of farms, fields and forests. The link below will take users to the Apple Store to download the app for free.

In 2016, nine ISEAL members came together to form the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Coalition. The coalition aims to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of highly hazardous pesticides, and to promote more sustainable alternatives. It also aims to harmonise approaches to pesticides between ISEAL member standards.

Please use this form to submit comments and suggestions on sections of the revised ISEAL Chain of Custody Models and Definitions Guidance. Completed forms should be emailed to Josh Taylor, Traceability Manager – Josh@isealalliance.org by 24 January 2025.

ISEAL has developed a good practice guide to help ensure that sustainability claims made by jurisdictions, landscape initiatives, and the companies that source from or support them, are credible. The guidance covers the structural and performance claims a jurisdictional entity may wish to make, along with the supporting action claims of other related stakeholders.

This infographic provides a summary on boosting sustainability practice and performance at the landscape level, through Good Water Stewardship project. 

Experts from ISEAL, and ISEAL members discuss what our research is telling us about the reach, contribution and impacts of standards on smallholder farmers and what this means for future innovations and partnerships.

The paper provides insights on growth trends and geographic presence of seven ISEAL member schemes that are leading global agricultural standards across seven commodities. We focus on trends and presence in producing and exporting countries where these schemes are adopted, with a specific interest in presence in low and lower-income classified countries.

A compilation of the lessons learned from four pilot projects in remote auditing from Responsible Jewellery Council, LEAF Marque, Beter Cotton Initiative, and Fairtrade USA. LEAF Marque and the Responsible Jewellery Council looked at the extent to which remote auditing could provide an alternative to in-person on-site visits, while the two other pilot projects used a remote phone survey based on worker voice technology to carry out interviews with workers in factory settings (in the case of Fair Trade USA) and in an agricultural setting on cotton farms (Better Cotton Initiative – BCI).

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.

This report first examines how standards systems are being applied to landscapes and jurisdictions. It then explores factors that are important to the effective application of sustainability strategies at a landscape level and identifies opportunities to strengthen the role that standards systems can play in implementing those strategies.

Moving towards an outcome-based standard creates the opportunity for LEAF to communicate more closely on the impacts of implementing the LEAF Marque Standard, measuring outcomes directly rather than proxying them with practices.

To help sustainability systems to strengthen the efficiency, inclusivity, and integrity of their traceability and chain of custody approaches, ISEAL is seeking a consultant or research team to strengthen collective understanding of the first mile of commodity supply chains and develop case studies on strategies and tools that support first mile inclusion in diverse landscapes, commodities, and contexts.

We are excited to launch the revision of the ISEAL Chain of Custody (CoC) Definitions and Models Guidance. The revision process will include: