Toward SuSTainabiliTy: The roleS and limiTaTionS of ... - Resolve

Chapter1Setting the ContextTo set the stage for the chapters that follow, this chapter describes briefly the emergenceof the standards and certification movement, the current status of some of the leadingstandards and certification systems, the components or design features that make up mostsystems, and some of the challenges those systems face today.But first, some definitions. Standards are adefined set of social, environmental, and/or economiccriteria. By complying with these criteria,enterprises translate a standard into concretepractices. Certification is a means of providingassurance that products or services comply withthe criteria. Standards and certification systemsmay have many objectives, but at their most basicthey provide a framework through which differententities (e.g., nongovernmental organizations(NGOs), businesses, government, etc.) can cooperateusing a common language to deliver moresustainable practices.The Emergence of Standardsand Certification SystemsPrivate, voluntary standards for sustainable productionemerged long before a link was madeto certification. In fact, standards for organicagriculture were developed as early as the 1920s.These standards represented the translation of aphilosophical approach to agriculture into a setof standardized growing practices. The standardsemerged from bottom-up, local standards thathad developed independently around the world,led mainly by groups of farmers themselves.Over time, these local standards were broughttogether, and a more unified, though not identical,interpretation of organic agriculture and theprinciples and criteria underlying it emerged. TheInternational Federation of Organic AgricultureMovements (IFOAM) was established in 1972 asa communications network among the variousorganic agriculture initiatives. 1This approach to standards development—wherein multiple, locally developed standardscoalesced to create a common standard—wasa product of the early stages of the standardsmovement and occurs in only a couple of otherinstances, notably fair trade (Colitt, 1995) andsustainable tourism. The fair trade movementevolved in the early 1990s from a well-establishedEuropean network of shops that specializedin direct trading relationships. The FairtradeLabelling Organizations International (FLO) wasestablished in 1997 to bring together variousnational initiatives under one roof. Fair tradecertification focused initially on agricultural commoditiesthat were critical to small farmers andworkers, including coffee, tea, cocoa, and sugar. Ithas been expanding to include other agriculturaland non-agricultural commodities.In contrast to these examples, most other sustainableproduction standards emerged as the resultof a conscious effort by a small group of nonprofitorganizations to convene and engage a crosssectionof stakeholders within a given sector,most notably bringing retailers and manufacturersto the negotiating table. The first attempt toimplement this new approach came with theestablishment of the Forest Stewardship Council(FSC) in 1993. The FSC built in part on the workof the Rainforest Alliance’s SmartWood program,which had been established a few years earlier1 www.ifoam.org/about_ifoam/inside_ifoam/history.htmlToward Sustainability: The Roles and Limitations of Certification 6