Standards
Sustainability standards or performance measures support enterprises to improve their sustainability practices and performance.
Standards are set through multistakeholder consultations to ensure the views of those most impacted in the sector are represented. We work with our members to ensure that those standards respond to changing expectations of stakeholders, such as being consistent with emerging legislation around company practices, being more outcome-focused to deliver measurable improvements on critical sustainability issues, and being accessible and of value to those enterprises that need to meet the requirements.
Examples of ISEAL's work on this topic include:
Standards development is relevant to remedying human rights abuses because it provides opportunity to set requirements about operational level grievance mechanisms. Further detail on this approach, among other ways sustainability systems can play a role in remedying human rights abuses, are described in this learning report.
Effective wage auditing and verification requires wage requirements within a standard to be clear and relevant. This research briefing provides an overview of challenges and potential solutions relevant to setting wage requirements.
There are two ways a sustainability system could integrate gender into a standard. Firstly, by including requirements that protect women from harm, and secondly, by including requirements that proactively support gender equality (e.g., policy requirements, ensuring representation, addressing the enabling environment). This briefing note provides more detail on both of these approaches, with practical insights that can be used to inform development of gender responsive standards.
