The Credibility Principles define the core values of credible and effective sustainability systems. They provide the foundations for systems to deliver greater impact.

The ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Sustainability Systems defines good practices across core areas of a sustainability system. It helps companies identify and evaluate trustworthy sustainability systems, while guiding them in developing their own sustainability programmes. Following these requirements, helps deliver meaningful sustainability outcomes while maintaining integrity and stakeholder trust.

To complement ISEAL’s Credibility Principles and Code of Good Practice for Sustainability Systems, ISEAL has a wide range of resources that explore the role of credible and effective sustainability systems in addressing critical sustainability challenges.

ISEAL regularly reviews its credibility resources to ensure they remain relevant in the evolving sustainability landscape. Our consultations give individuals and companies the opportunity to share their perspectives, shape guidance, and provide valuable input on what works for them.

Addressing value chain inequities and supporting resilient smallholder livelihoods are crucial for ISEAL, as these issues are central to sustainable and equitable economic growth.

ISEAL works with sustainability systems and partners to strengthen human rights protection and drive progress on gender equality, living wages and decent work.

Sustainability systems are developing new tools and innovative approaches to help businesses, governments and civil society take credible action on climate and nature. ISEAL fosters innovation and promotes good practice in this space.

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 are represented. We work with our members to ensure standards respond to stakeholders’ changing expectations, such as being consistent with emerging legislation, delivering measurable improvements on sustainability issues, and being accessible and of value to enterprises that meet the requirements.

Sustainability systems act as a trust mechanism between a producing enterprise or service and a buyer. The assurance or verification practices a sustainability system implements create that trust. Assurance assesses compliance with the standard or performance requirements. We work with members to strengthen the integrity of the assurance process through better identification and management of non-compliance risks, better data management, and strengthening the competence of auditors and assurance systems.

A sustainability system’s effectiveness is measured by the sustainability impacts it delivers. Credible sustainability systems track performance and improve over time. A sustainability system must assess whether its strategies achieve desired sustainability outcomes. ISEAL supports its members to collect quality data about reach and changes on the ground. This data informs stakeholders, demonstrating the effectiveness of the system and supporting sustainability reporting and disclosure for companies and other stakeholders.

Information about sustainability practices and performance needs to flow through supply chains to markets. Credible traceability models enable that flow. International supply chains are complex, with several models for tracking the flow of sustainability attributes. ISEAL provides a common understanding of these different chain of custody models and supports members in establishing systems that enable data about provenance and impact to flow freely through supply chains.

Effective data management is key to successful sustainability systems, providing insights on performance and risk. Increasingly, the value of sustainability systems lies in their ability to deliver performance insights to stakeholders. We help members build strong foundations for data management, enhancing trust and resilience. We support their capacity to integrate geolocation data, enabling visualisation of trends and risks, and advocate for responsible use of data and protection of data rights.

The sustainability claims and communications that companies make need to be truthful and supported by a transparent and robust system. Sustainability systems organisations enable users to make claims consistent with their standard, assurance, monitoring, and traceability systems. These range from certification labels on product to company reports on supply chain risks and impacts. We help members and market actors understand and apply good practices for credible claims making.

We work on relevant due diligence legislation such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and Forced Labour Regulation (FLR). We analyse policy text to understand implications for voluntary initiatives and business, submit technical positions and inputs into policymaking, and participate in relevant policy spaces to share our expertise on credibility and encourage the uptake and recognition of credible voluntary initiatives.

We bring relevant expertise from our work on systems effectiveness and credible claims to understand and influence claims policies and legislation. Key focus files are the EU’s Green Claims Directive (GCD) and Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (ECD), and emerging claims policies from key jurisdictions.

Trade policy increasingly references sustainability systems to achieve sustainability goals. We encourage using our credibility tools in trade policy design and implementation, focusing on regional and bilateral agreements like free trade agreements (FTAs) and global trade frameworks like World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements. Our work builds capacity and engagement with trade policy teams in key developing countries, supporting sustainability through trade.