ISEAL has launched a six-week public consultation seeking input into its draft guidance on credible claims in the living wage space. One of ISEAL’s strategic objectives is to ensure that emerging market-based sustainability tools are underpinned by credible practice and systems, with a fundamental pillar being to ensure the claims they make are credible.
ISEAL’s work on credible claims gained momentum in 2015 with the publication of the Sustainability Claims Good Practice Guide. More recently we have developed guidance for making credible claims about landscape or jurisdictional level action and performance. Our current work on living wage claims extends this repertoire of claims guidance to issue-based claims, and while the topic focus is living wages, the guiding framework is designed to be adaptable to other topics.
As companies strengthen their work to tackle pressing issues such as poverty, decent work or the climate emergency, the desire to make claims about their actions and progress is rising. Living wages is a clear case where growing corporate commitments to address living wage gaps are increasing the demand to make claims about such actions and their outcomes. But it is important to ensure that claims – by individual companies and schemes that partner with them – are credible, transparent and trustworthy.
ISEAL’s framework to guide claim-making on living wages
Responding to this trend and the gap in guidance to support issue-based claims, ISEAL developed this framework to support credible claims in the living wage space. The guidance has been developed as part of a wider project implemented by ISEAL, with support from IDH, aimed at strengthening sustainability standards and systems to advance living wage goals.
The ‘Making credible living wage claims: A framework to guide practice’ document is aimed at professionals within companies and sustainability systems who are working on living wages and seek guidance on how to conceptualise, develop and deliver credible claims about their actions and work in the living wage space. It is comprised of three sections (with a fourth section on case studies to be developed later) that focus on a) the fundamentals of good sustainability claims, b) a typology and framework to think about living wage claims and c) a step-by-step guide to making living wage claims.
How to get involved
Through this consultation, ISEAL is seeking feedback and input to sharpen the guidance and its ability to inform practice in the living wage space. We welcome input from all stakeholders thinking and working on living wages and credible claims. You can provide your feedback either by responding to the survey or sharing comments directly with ISEAL by 26 September 2023.
As governments the world over crackdown on bad claims, the sector has an opportunity to advance action meaningfully and responsibly by ensuring claims are clear and trustworthy, and help spur investment in action. The living wage movement is at a critical juncture and making credible claims about related company action is essential to supporting its progress.
