ISEAL, WWF and Rainforest Alliance launched a new website called Evidensia on 18 June 2019. The site aims to be a robust global repository of evidence on the impacts and effectiveness of leading supply chain tools addressing key sustainability issues.

Evidensia is designed to meet the needs of business leaders, policy makers and researchers. With growing commitment by governments and businesses to tackle sustainability challenges, the need for understanding what works where, why and how is growing. Evidensia provides easy access to credible research on the impact of sustainability initiatives to enable more informed decisions on sustainability.

ISEAL Alliance, the global membership organisation for credible sustainability standards, launched Evidensia at the Global Sustainability Standards Symposium ‘From Evidence to Action’ in The Hague. WWF and Rainforest Alliance are the other two founding partners of Evidensia.

Credible evidence and information on the impacts of sustainability initiatives

‘It's difficult for decision makers to identify and understand what information exists about the impacts and effectiveness of sustainability initiatives, and to understand what is an effective intervention that leads to impacts,’ said Vidya Rangan, Impacts and Evidence Senior Manager, ISEAL Alliance.

‘Evidensia has been developed to help businesses, governments and practitioners make critical decisions in their development work by working with researchers to develop this knowledge. We need to know what drives effectiveness and what delivers sustainability impacts if we're to advance and address the issues we are all concerned about. And, critically, we need to know where we have gaps in our evidence and understanding to make this progress.’

Evidensia is the global online database and knowledge platform for decision-makers to easily identify and understand what information exists about the impacts, effectiveness and business value of sustainability initiatives. It includes evidence and information on a range of sustainability supply chain tools and approaches, including standards and certification, company sourcing codes and jurisdictional approaches.

Easily accessible information for decision-making

Evidensia covers a broad range of sustainability issues, from climate change, deforestation, biodiversity and water conservation to child rights and wages. The information is represented in a variety of formats, including independent scientific studies, evaluation reports and case studies. Evidensia transparently shares where the credible research into the effects and impact of sustainability initiatives is positive and where improvements are needed.

‘Evidence on the impacts of sustainability initiatives has sometimes been challenging to identify. The launch of Evidensia is an important step towards enhancing the integration of this evidence into decision-making around the application of different sustainability tools. It will also help us to identify gaps in the evidence base – and to work together towards closing them,’ said Sylvia Wisniwski, Managing Director at Finance in Motion, at the launch event.

‘At Albert Heijn sustainability is part of our core business. If we are to progress in addressing the most pressing sustainability issues, we need substantial and collated impacts information to make solid, informed decisions. This is what Evidensia gives us,’ continued Laura Jungmann, Sustainability manager, Albert Heijn.

More effective actions and decisions

Through these efforts Evidensia will help companies and others identify and implement effective mechanisms for sustainable production and sourcing, and will also help improve the effectiveness of sustainability tools and approaches.

Key features of the site

Finding information on www.evidensia.eco is possible with the following features and interactive tools:

• Online library with a high degree of search customisation. Users can search by a sustainability pillar (referring to whether a study focuses on economic, social or environmental aspects of sustainability), by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs build the framework for the global transformation by 2030), by country or region, by sector or product, by sustainability issue, by organisation or tool.
• Visual summaries: clear overview of evidence on specific topics of interest.

Coming soon:

• Geo maps: evidence and information through a geographic lens.
• Evidensia Knowledge Finder: find evidence on issues, sectors, products and tools and spot gaps.