Definition of Voluntary Sustainability Initiatives
The SCI considers "voluntary sustainability initiatives" or "VSI's" to be any non-mandatory, rules based partnership or collaboration among multiple supply chain stakeholders aimed at improving the social, economic and environmental sustainability of commodity production and/or trade. Over the last decade, more than 20 new global VSI's have been established with the aim of leveraging market forces to promote sustainable development.
Examples of operational VSI's include; Fairtrade, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), Forest Stewardship Council, Marine Stewardship Council, The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, Global Compact, ISO 14000, Global Reporting Initiative, CERES Principles etc.
Voluntary initiatives have the potential to bring many benefits to international trade sectors including:
- Higher and more stable revenues through the identification of sustainable products and markets
- Better farm and business management practices among rural producers and small and medium sized enterprises (SME's)
- Improved stakeholder awareness of market trends
- Reduced stakeholder risk exposure to market volatility
- More efficient and strategic natural resource use
- Improved consistency, quality and supply of products to consumers
- Improved consumer awareness of producer conditions through private sector communication channels
- Improved coordination and efficiency of supply chain management
- Increased private sector investment for sustainable production and consumption
VSI's also offer a vehicle for channelling a growing private sector interest in promoting sustainability towards common approaches and pooled investment. With the potential to create unified approaches and the economies of scale needed to bring about widespread change at the global level, voluntary supply-chain approaches are ready to establish a new paradigm for commodity production and trade.
"Cross-cutting" initiatives seek to promote inter-initiative cooperation to improve efficiency, transparency and effectiveness within the sector. The growth in the number of NGO, government and industry led initiatives has increased the opportunities to promote sustainable practice in commodity sectors, but has also led to a multiplication of transaction and implementation costs that threaten the viability and impact of these approaches. Most initiatives have the potential to benefit considerably from shared learning and collaboration with service provision since they have similar objectives implement similar activitieson the ground.
Since the majority of voluntary initiatives focus on the practices of individual supply chain actors, a largely untapped global "macro" oriented approach to production poses new opportunities for the development of sustainable commodity supply chains. In addition to carrying out its own inter-ininitiative collaboration, the SCI is either a participant or member of the following cross-cutting initiatives:
- Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform
- Sustainable Food Lab
- International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling (ISEAL) Alliance
- The World Bank's Trade Standards Practitioners Network
The Trade Standards Practitioners Network provides detailed descriptions of major VSI's across commodity sectors worldwide.
Read more about this topic: Sustainable Commodity Initiative
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