The Trade for Sustainable
Development (T4SD) is a partnership-based programme of the International Trade
Centre (ITC) to provide comprehensive, verified and transparent information on voluntary
sustainability standards. The main objective of T4SD is to strengthen the
capacity of producers, exporters, policymakers, private and public buyers, to
participate in more sustainable production and trade.
Over the past years, voluntary sustainability standards
have experienced unprecedented growth.
Accompanying this growth is the increasing need for information on such standards
and transparency on their requirements and scope of operations. Producers and
exporters often lack information when considering whether and how to engage into
more sustainable production and trade practices. Also manufacturers, retailers
and public procurement officials lack detailed information when making
purchasing decisions. In addition, theincreasing
relevance of sustainability standards also necessitates analysis on the extent
to which these standards actually address environmental, economic, labor and social
issues.
Voluntary
sustainability standards covered by the T4SD project include Fairtrade, Forest
Stewardship Council, Marine Stewardship Council, and Bonsucro among others. Standards currently referenced
into Standards Map are by no means composing an exhaustive list of voluntary
sustainability standards, nor is there any intention to exclude non-referenced
standards. On the contrary, the T4SD team is constantly engaging with additional
standard organizations.
The T4SD Concept
To address these information gaps
and needs, ITC has developed
a database containing comprehensive, comparable and verified information on voluntary
sustainability standards. The T4SD Global
Database allows homogenous information collection with a unique level of
detail and consists of two main components: the “Standards Database” and the “Research
Database”. The Standards Database covers all facets of standards systems,
such as their contextual background, product and geographic scope, provisions
and requirements (economic, social, and environmental, quality…), governance
structure, stakeholders’ engagement, implementation mechanisms and verification
systems, monitoring and evaluation activities, as well as their potential market
outreach. The research database references over 250 research papers relating to
the implementation of voluntary standards. These papers come from universities,
research institutions and international organizations.
Data collection is solely managed
by ITC in a fully inter-active IT environment by means of a web-based data
entry tool. ITC, acting as a global repository of information, provides access
to the T4SD Global Database to its partners, which use this data to serve the
needs of their own constituents. For instance, to date, the T4SD Global
Database exports data to a Swiss-German external front-end website addressing
the needs of public procurement and small and medium-sized enterprises called Kompass Nachhaltigkeit.
By sharing information in such a
way, ITC not only provides a common taxonomy against which data may be analysed,
but also ensures that relevant and accurate data is disseminated to
third-parties. Furthermore, the T4SD Global Database creates efficiencies by
allowing external organizations to use its information , therefore avoiding
duplication of resources.
The T4SD Programme & Partners
STANDARDS MAP
The Standards Map website is the
ITC front-end using the T4SD Global Database and is part of ITC’s suite of
Market Analysis Tools. It is is accessible at www.standardsmap.org.
Standards Map presents data contained in the T4SD Global Database to suit the needs of ITC’s core constituents, and
enables them to:
- Identify standard systems using thematic
filters, customize searches using pre-set queries and review standards’
coverage and scope, cost and price estimates, support and assistance,
governance and environmental, social, economic, ethical, traceability and
quality requirements. Construct advanced queries or refine pre-set queries from
a pool of over 700 criteria.
Furthermore, this website is available in English, Spanish and French.
- Analyze and compare standards: Over 70 voluntary
sustainability standards operating in more than 200 target markets, certifying
products and services in over 60 economic sectors - including agriculture,
forestry, fisheries, mining, textiles and manufactured products, among others.
- Identify opportunities for product
diversification and new niche markets: Make a comparative assessment of
private standards requirements and assess potential costs and benefits linked
to the adoption of private standards.
- Review research on private standards.
- Visualize standards requirements and scope:
Generate maps to view standards’ actual and potential geographical scope.
STANDARDS MAP TRAINING AND
CAPACITY BUILDING
T4SD also provides
training to enhance users’ understanding not only of the Standards Map web tool,
but also of voluntary sustainability standards. This provides producers and
exporters in developing countries with information to allow them to weigh the costs
and benefits of adopting private standards.
The training
component of the project is designed to complement Standards Map and to
maximize its value to producers, exporters and support organizations in
developing countries. The current curriculum includes trainings on:
- “Introduction to Private Standards and the
Standards Map Market Analysis Tool”
- “Detailed analysis and review of private
standards – a case study apparoach a pre-defined product/economic sector”
- “Training of Trainers course on the
dissimenation of Standards Map”
STANDARDS MAP RESEARCH
OBSERVATORY
T4SD is carrying out a review of the
impacts of voluntary standards synthesizing the research on voluntary
standards. The team published three out of four parts of this review
integrating results from over 200 studies out of a total of over 800 studies
that were reviewed. The analytical approach for the literature review is
consistent throughout the four papers of the series and the papers focus on the
following four topics:
- The impact of standards on globalvalue chains
- The impact of standards on producersin developing countries
- The interplay of public and privatestandards
- When
and how do private standards work? Context conditions and implementation (to be finalized in March 2012).
Each paper is a stand-alone piece and is
accessible on Standards Map. To read the
executive summaries and download the articles in pdf, please click on the links
above. This will also lead you to the further publications by the T4SD team.
KOMPASS Nachhaltigkeit
The internet platform Kompass Nachhaltigkeit provides
comprehensive information on sustainable procurement in order to support public
institutions as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in their purchasing
decisions. A share of the data presented in COMPASS is extracted from the T4SD
GLOBALDATABASE. The primary objective of the Compass Sustainability is to facilitate
the use of sustainability standards for public and private purchasing entities.
The internet platform addresses buyers in Switzerland and Germany and is
accessible at www.kompass-nachhaltigkeit.ch
or www.kompass-nachhaltigkeit.de.
COSA
The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) is a non-profit
global consortium of institutions developing and applying an independent
measurement tool to analyze the distinct social, environmental and economic
impacts of any agricultural practices, particularly those associated with the
implementation of specific sustainability programs. The primary goal is to
establish useful global indicators and transparent, globally-shared measurement
tools which farmers, policy-makers, and industry can use to understand and
improve their sustainability with different crops or agricultural sectors.
Information can be found at www.thecosa.org.
SSTI
T4SD is
contributing to the work of GIZ, ISEAL Alliance and a range of experts on
voluntary standards systems that are developing a “Comparison Tool” that aims
to (i) evaluate the performance of sustainability standard systems, (ii)
compare standard systems with each other or with other norms and requirements;
and (iii) support mutual recognition between standard systems. To do so, this
tool will extract and analyze data contained in the T4SD Standards Database,
focusing primarily on the following areas: content of the standards; assurance
process; governance and accessibility.
SIM
T4SD is also
building a new partnership with Supply Chain Information Management (SIM), a
private company based in the Netherlands, to disseminate Standards Map to a
wide range of supply chain stakeholders willing to access information on
private sustainability standards and use such information in their supply chain
risk management systems.