ISEAL is an international non-profit organisation that codifies best practice for the design and implementation of social and environmental private standards initiatives. ISEAL Alliance members are organisations in social and environmental standard-setting and accreditation, and are committed to compliance with ISEAL Good Practice.
ISEAL Community Members are required to submit annual progress reports and improvement plans against ISEAL Codes of Good Practice. To understand the difference they are making, they must implement a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system within the first three years of participation.
ISEAL Code Compliant organisations need to demonstrate a rigorous approach to improvement by implementing
ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice provide a framework, defining good practices for setting social and environmental standards, providing assurance against them and undertaking monitoring and evaluation to assess progress against these standards.
One of ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice is on “ standard-setting”. The latter defines how a standard should be developed, structured and improved over time. The Code addresses multi-stakeholder consultation and decision-making, and ensures the standard contains clear requirements that can be measured and assessed. One of the key principles is engagement and the Code requires that the standard-setter informs stakeholders , including workers’ representatives, about why the standard is important and communicates to them how they can participate in the standards development or revision process. The standard-setting is asked to proactively engage with stakeholder groups that are likely to have an interest in the standard or that are likely to be affected by its implementation, and provides them with mechanisms for participation that are appropriate and accessible. This is in order to make sure that the views of stakeholders are reflected in the consultation process and in decision-making.
As a result, the involvement of stakeholders is required at all stages of the procedure (prior consultations to the standard setting process, in the decision-making process, etc.).
Community Members that demonstrate adherence to the baseline and improvement criteria of ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice in accordance with the ISEAL Independent Evaluation Procedure are recognised as ISEAL Code Compliant.
The list of initiatives that have a component on labour practices, that have been certified compliant with the ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice, is below:
- Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI), a global non-profit standards setting and certification organization that brings together producers, users and stakeholders in the aluminium value chain
- Aquaculture Stewardship Council , an international non-profit organisation that manages the world’s leading certification and labelling programme for responsible aquaculture.
- Better Cotton Initiative , a global sustainability initiative for cotton.
- Bonsucro, a global sustainability platform and standard in the sugarcane industry
- Fairtrade International, a label for consumers aimed at promoting the lives of farmers and workers through trade.
- Goodweave which works to stop child labour in global supply chains in the carpet industry.
- MarinTrust which is a business to business certification programme for the marine ingredient value chain.
- Rainforest Alliance, an alliance of farmers, forest communities, companies, and consumers to protect forests, improve the livelihoods of farmers and forest communities, promote their human rights, and help them mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis.
- Responsible Jewellery Council , a standards body for responsible jewellery throughout the entire supply chain.
- Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials which mission is to ensure that the use of biomass and derived bio-products, including biofuels, deliver on their promises of climate change mitigation, economic development, and energy security without causing environmental or social damage.
- Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a global sustainability initiative on sustainable palm oil.