Improving Engagement of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Sustainability Standards

Improving Engagement of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Sustainability Standards

Voluntary sustainability standards and safeguards are mechanisms that can be used to track and reduce negative corporate environmental and social impact, improve transparency and promote best practice. Transforming the way goods are produced is a key focus of many environmental conservation organisations and is reflected in global targets including SDG 12 and Aichi target 4. Standards present an opportunity to promote best practice to ensure sustainability principles are applied through good social and environmental governance. However, certification also comes with risks, including the high costs of certification; lack of harmonisation among sustainability standards and safeguards; certification fatigue; duplicative audits and elusive results; and the potential for greenwash.

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) play an important role in the development, implementation and oversight of these standards and safeguards. CSOs often act as both stakeholder and advisor to the sustainability standards and safeguards process, which can be confusing for other stakeholders as they do not always get consistent responses from these CSOs. The opportunity to bring clarity to this process through the creation of a guiding document for CSOs engaging in the standards and safeguards process was the rationale for this Collaborative Fund project.

The project focused on voluntary standards and safeguards with the greatest potential to avoid and minimise harm to the environment through high-risk commodities such as palm oil, rubber, and bauxite/aluminium.

Project Aims

The overall aim of this work is to reduce the environmental impact of natural resource-based production or extraction through the implementation of more impactful sustainability standards and safeguards. The specific objectives for the project were:

  1. To develop an agreed list of priority standards and associated engagement plan
  2. To financially support active engagement in priority standards/safeguards
  3. To produce a set of guidelines for environmental CSO engagement in sustainability standards and safeguards
  4. To develop a teaching session on ‘the role of sustainability standards in conservation’
  5. To develop longer term financial model for the platform.

Key Activities

Database and case studies

The project created a database of standards that CCI partners (and others) have been involved with. Interviews were carried out with a number of CCI partners on their engagement with various standards, producing detailed case studies for four certification standards and one financial safeguard. A literature review was also carried out on the key issues and barriers to engagement with standards and safeguards. A workshop was organised for project partners and a wider set of stakeholder organisations who are working on the development, governance and implementation of standards and financial safeguards to understand key engagement priorities and gaps.

Conservation Impact

The scale and impact of economic activity is vast. Palm oil plantations cover 20 m ha in the tropics. Over 50 mt of bauxite are mined every year. The IFC invests billions of $s in development projects annually. Standards and safeguards represent one of the primary approaches for managing and mitigating the impacts of these activities, potentially impacting millions of hectares, yet engagement by conservation organisations in the development and application of such standards is patchy and uncoordinated. It is unclear whether we are missing a golden opportunity to drive change, or risking greenwashing of business as usual. This project represents the first attempt to address this, building a platform for conservation organisations to share experiences, prioritise engagement and build capacity.

Outputs

Guidance and recommendations

This project produced high level recommendations and guidance around principles that should always be included within the criteria of a standard with respect to biodiversity, as follows:

  1. Suitable level of ambition or objective, such as zero net loss or net gain for biodiversity
  2. Mandatory application of a mitigation hierarchy
  3. Adherence to international commitments that contribute to the Convention for Biodiversity and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
  4. Equitable resource sharing and use.

The findings of the project, including overviews of the interviews and case studies, along with recommendations, are included in the following comprehensive report: Safeguards and Certification_CCI Report 2019

 

CCI partners Involved

Other Organisations Involved

Zological Society of London

Wildlife Conservation Society

WWF UK

Credits

Thumbnail and banner image: Theo Crazzolara via Flickr creative commons