Certification... continued

Date

19 Nov 2004

Location

Bangkok, Thailand (1400-1630, session ref: 831)

Details

Sponsors: Tom Rotherham, IISD ; Tomme Young, IUCN (moderator)

This workshop built on a morning session which examined the capability and application of certification as a means of promoting sustainability. A number of initiatives were presented, addressing the areas in which sustainability-related certification has already achieved some successes (forest, fisheries, agriculture), and also considering a variety of other kinds of certification (products of protected areas and traditional culture, NGO benchmarking) and new international initiatives and analyses seeking to broaden the scope of certification, by providing bases and international standards for standard setting, application and coordination. Particularly where certification is developed or promoted through civil society organizations.

Key conclusions and recommendations:

The evolution of the certification concept is happening on-the-ground -- New initiatives are developing the certification-for-sustainability concept by applying it in the field;

BUT there is a limit to the sheer numbers of standards that can be developed and usefully applied;

Working in green markets and greening other markets as well as targeting actors other than final consumers, we need to develop an understanding of when standards are an effective tool and when other mechanisms should be used.