Berlin, 21 October 2016 - Today in Berlin, over 100 participants, including policy makers, stakeholders from civil society organisations, trade unions, private sector, in addition to UN agencies and partners, came together to participate in a high-level event for the launch of the 2nd Flagship Report of the United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards (UNFSS) titled, "Meeting Sustainability Goals: Voluntary Sustainability Standards and the Role of Government".
Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) serve as one mechanism that governments can use in their pursuit of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but many are not yet seizing this opportunity. For many developing country exporters, the sheer number and complexity of such schemes can act as a barrier to market entry. The high-level launch event was jointly organised by the German Development Institute (DIE), the Federation of German Industries (BDI) and UNFSS.
A central question of the workshop addressed how governments, business and society can cooperate to make VSS more affordable and beneficial for local producers and their communities, more attractive and credible for consumers, and more manageable and relevant for companies. If these issues are addressed coherently, VSS promise to become an important and concrete part of the public-private effort to transition to a green economy.
Deputy Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Joakim Reiter drove home this notion: "We need a profound transformation in the way we produce and in the way we consume. For that we need to mobilise every actor and every tool available to us. This includes private sustainability standards".
As the report notes, in some regions of the world, voluntary standards have become a near market requirement for brands that wish to build trust among consumers. In a sixty-country survey, for example, over 60% of respondents said they were willing to pay a premium for sustainable brands, up from 55% in 2013, and 50% in 2014.
In 2012, exports of certified products were worth $36 billion, mostly composed of products from the food and agricultural sectors, namely cocoa, coffee, cotton, forestry, soya, sugar, and tea. But VSS compliance can be burdensome or opaque for many developing country exporters and small and medium-sized business owners.
"Voluntary sustainability standards need to become more affordable and accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises. They need to be credible and have transformational impacts. The only way to achieve this is through a multi-stakeholder process" Mr. Reiter remarked.
Dr Ravi Singh, Secretary General of the Quality Council of India – a national quality facilitation and accreditation body that collaboratively worked with UNFSS to set-up a national platform on private sustainability standards in India – stated, "Voluntary sustainability standards can be an important and transparent tool for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. They need to be adapted to the national context."
The event in Berlin follows the launch of the report in Geneva last month.
Set up in 2013, the UNFSS is a joint initiative by five UN organisations – the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Trade Centre (ITC), UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), UN Environment, and the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). The role of UNFSS is to ensure inclusiveness, coherence, credibility, transparency and openness in setting up and implementing sustainability standards.
The full report can be accessed here.
For more information, please contact:
Dominika Dor-Skrobot
UNIDO, Industrial Development Officer
email: d.dor@unido.org
email: tii@unido.org
Anja Von Moltke
UN Environment, Environment and Trade Hub
email: anja.moltke@unep.org
Chiara Moroni
UN Environment, Economics and Trade branch, Communications
email: chiara.moroni@unep.org
