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.

ISEAL has revised its Chain of Custody (CoC) Definitions and Models 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.

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 outlines the approach taken by the LIA Impact Partnership Pilot project, exploring Impact Partnership Incentives. While Impact Incentives work in a similar way to existing book & claim systems by rewarding already certified producers, Impact Partnership Incentives allow brands and retailers to support on-the-ground Program Partners to help producers transition towards best practices and certification.

The Impact Alliance project was designed to test the feasibility of “Impact Incentives” and “Impact Partnership Incentives” as innovative market-driven working models to scale and improve sustainability performance at landscape levels. The aim was to have a validated model that can be scaled up and offered for use with other commodities and other ISEAL standards, becoming an important sustainability impact accelerator for the sourcing areas of a growing number of industries. This document provides lessons learnt and insights gained over the course of the project. 

As part of the ATLA project, Better Cotton Pakistan has explored way to work with the Punjab Provincial Government, Civil Society as well as with private sector to embed the BCSS Model into national cotton production practice. The Jurisdictional Approach is one of the key strategy framework for such kind of collaborative arrangements by adopting the standards in national policy context.

Please use this form to submit comments and suggestions on sections of the revised ISEAL Chain of Custody Definitions and Models Guidance. Completed forms should be emailed to Josh Taylor, Traceability Manager – Josh@isealalliance.org by 11 January 2025.

Sustainability systems are positioned to advance human rights protections in specific geographies and commodities through verification and remediation of human rights violations, such as forced and bonded labor. However to ensure impact, detecting those violations is central and often elusive. This report captures project learnings and shares general recommendations for those working to improve FBL detection in different sectors.

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).

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

This briefing note shares insights and learnings from a series of semi-structured interviews ISEAL conducted with fourteen leading, global companies engaged in living wage actions.