1. ISEAL & Impacts:
Working Together to
Demonstrate & Improve
Poverty Impacts
ISEAL Alliance | May 2013

2. ISEAL & Impacts
The ISEAL Alliance is committed to improving the effectiveness and increasing the impacts of
sustainability standards. An important instrument for achieving this goal is the ISEAL Impacts Code.
The Impacts Code is one of three Codes of Good Practice that sustainability standards must implement
as conditions of ISEAL membership.
The Impacts Code requires sustainability standards to create a monitoring and evaluation (M&E)
system that will enable them to track short and medium-term change and to understand how this
contributes to generating the long-term sustainability impacts they seek. Since ISEAL launched the
Impacts Code in 2010, ISEAL members have made a clear commitment to M&E; staff time dedicated to
M&E has increased substantially–some organisations have tripled their human resources.
The ISEAL Secretariat actively supports members in implementing the Impacts Code and in establishing
high quality and effective M&E systems. The core of this support is the coordination of a peer learning
and support group that unites M&E staff from ISEAL member organisations. ISEAL also provides
capacity building, one-on-one technical support, guidance notes, and webinars for its members.
Measuring and demonstrating performance and impacts is an important step, but the end goal is using
that information to make improvements and make a difference. Evidence in hand, ISEAL will work with
members to identify approaches to addressing identified weaknesses and possibilities for joint action
to improve impacts.
The Demonstrating & Improving Poverty Impacts Project Team
Project Funded By
Photos: Nathalie Bertrams, Fairtrade Intl (cover); UTZ Certified.

3. 3 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
1 The Demonstrating & Improving
Poverty Impacts Project
Sustainability standards that are members of the ISEAL
Alliance address social justice, human rights, and
environmental sustainability across a range of sectors. While
each member is unique and has its own specific
sustainability goals, ISEAL members are united in their
recognition of the importance of understanding and
communicating the impacts of their programmes.
All sustainability standards in the ISEAL Alliance are committed to
tracking performance against their sustainability objectives,
evaluating their impacts, and using that knowledge to improve the
effectiveness of their programmes. Through support from the Ford
Foundation, the ISEAL Secretariat and six ISEAL Alliance members,
representing agriculture and forestry sectors, are currently working
together to demonstrate and improve the contribution that
sustainability standards make to one particular sustainability goal:
reducing poverty and improving livelihoods in developing countries.
Learning together is at the heart of our work with ISEAL members.
The Demonstrating and Improving Poverty Impacts project is a good
example of how the project team put this principle into practice
around a particular sustainability goal.
The long-term goal of this Ford Foundation-funded project has been
to work together to:
 Demonstrate the contribution that certification systems can
make to poverty alleviation and pro-poor development; and,
 Drive poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods for those
working in agriculture and forestry, through improved
impacts of certification.
The project's approach to achieving these goals is based on two core
tenets. The first is that having strong monitoring and evaluation
systems will empower ISEAL members to track their contribution to
pro-poor development and learn how to improve. To achieve this
goal, the project began with supporting participating members in
building their M&E systems and with developing a strong culture of
shared learning among the M&E staff members of ISEAL member
organisations. Together the participants in ISEAL's impacts working
group have identified key challenges in building M&E systems and
the Secretariat worked to develop general advice and detailed
A core tenet of this
project is the idea that
ISEAL members can
learn more–and learn
more quickly–about
impacts by coordinating
and harmonising their
approaches to
monitoring and
evaluation.

4. 4 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
guidance notes for addressing these challenges and building robust
and practical M&E systems.
A second core tenet of this project is the idea that ISEAL members
can learn more–and learn more quickly–about impacts by
coordinating and harmonising their approaches to monitoring and
evaluation. To that end, the project team embraced a collaborative
approach that has generated a shared vision and direction and
shared indicators to be used in ISEAL members' M&E systems and
future collaborative studies of the impacts of sustainability standards
on the poor.
2 Shared Vision & Direction
2.1 Conceptual Framework
More than half of the population in the developing world
live in rural areas. A large majority of these people are poor;
their livelihoods frequently depend on agricultural and
natural resource-based products. Many work as small-scale
farmers, forest operators, and labourers who often rely on
unsustainable production practices that threaten their
livelihoods and have long-term economic, social, and
environmental consequences.
Small-scale producers are normally engaged in subsistence
production or connected to local markets. Access to global markets is
often constrained by geography, transportation and infrastructure
costs, lack of affordable credit, and product quantity. As a result,
transaction costs can be high, economies of scale low, and bargaining
power weak, especially within the context of markets that experience
volatile price fluctuations. In addition, buyers, producers, and retail
companies secure much of the value in the supply chain and can
even constrain opportunities for small-scale producers to access
markets.
Sustainability standards are one important strategy for addressing
these barriers to using export-oriented production for pro-poor
development. How could sustainability standards systems help small-
scale farmers and forestry operators move out of poverty? How do
they intend to make a difference for workers employed by
plantations and enterprises? Each standard is unique and emphasises
a different approach to reducing poverty and promoting sustainable
livelihoods, and yet there are many common elements in their
approaches and goals.

5. 5 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
These common elements are captured in the conceptual framework
(p. 6, Figure 1) developed by the Demonstrating and Improving
Poverty Impacts project team. The framework offers a generalised
picture of how standard systems work at the primary production
level to improve human well-being. This framework does not
correspond to the strategy of any one sustainability standard, but
rather reflects a shared vision.
The conceptual framework’s end goal, represented at the bottom of
the figure, is significant and sustained improvement in human well-
being at the household level. Human well-being is multi-dimensional
and includes economic, environmental, human, social, and political
dimensions. Higher incomes are part of the picture, but equally
important are living conditions, education, empowerment, and
control over natural resources.
Sustainability standards employ numerous strategies aimed at
achieving this end goal. The strategies–the standard, organisational
development, technical training, certification and assurance–appear
as tags at the top and in the middle of the figure. The core of the
sustainability standard is the standard itself, which establishes
practice or performance requirements, e.g., good agricultural
practices for farmers, sustainable harvesting rates for forestry
operations, or wage and contract requirements for plantations or
enterprises with hired labour. Sustainability standards support the
implementation of the standard by providing technical training. They
also develop or strengthen organisations that group small-scale
producers or operators who could not be certified on their own.
Once basic requirements of a sustainability standard are met,
enterprises and producers may opt for certification (see the centre of
Figure 1) and for the market access and higher prices that this opens
up. Sustainability standards operate or supervise assurance
programmes (e.g., audits) that check compliance with the standard.
Together, these strategies are intended to induce change in
enterprises (forest management enterprises, plantations) and
producers (individual farms or producer groups). For sustainability
standards to contribute to poverty reduction and pro-poor livelihood
development, the changes made by these entities must trickle down,
via the pathways shown in Figure 1, and result in improvements for
farmers, workers, and their families. Whether sustainability
standards ultimately succeed in generating improvements at the
household level depends both on the effectiveness of their strategies
and on many other factors outside of their direct control.
The conceptual
framework offers a
generalised picture of
how standard systems
work at the primary
production level to
improve human-well
being

6. 6 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
Figure 1

7. 7 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
At the top of each of these pathways are the direct, short-term
outputs of standards systems activities (e.g., trained and
knowledgeable farmers and workers, newly formed producer groups,
adoption of required practices, or new business systems). If effective,
these outputs should then lead to farm and enterprise-level
outcomes like better management of natural resources, increased
and higher quality production, higher and more stable revenues,
more accountable producer groups, better working conditions, more
voice and participation, and new services and infrastructure for
communities. For each pathway, here is how outcomes are expected
to produce impacts at the household level:
Improved natural resource management helps ensure a sustainable
resource base to support livelihoods of families that depend on
farming, forestry, or wild harvesting as their principle source of
income, or as a supplement to other activities.
Improved production practices can boost productivity and quality,
leaving farmers and enterprises with more to sell and/or a higher
quality product that can fetch a higher price.
Better business practices, record keeping, and more negotiating
power in setting contracts and prices all boost business resilience,
which ultimately means higher profits for farmers or more potential
to invest and raise wages in enterprises and plantations that depend
on wage labour.
Creating and strengthening producer groups helps secure market
access for small-scale farmers that could not achieve certification or
access export markets on their own. Strong producer groups are
likewise important vehicles for delivering credit, inputs, and training
that farmers need to continue improving their production and
business practices.
Enforcement of labour rights, wage requirements, and health and
safety standards protects workers and reduces accidents and
accident-related income losses.
Greater and more meaningful participation of farmers in producer
groups, and of workers in negotiations with plantations and
enterprises, helps boost transparency, generate trust, and ultimately
ensure that farmers and workers share in the benefits that come
from certification.
Standard requirements around informed consent, use of premiums,
and investments in community infrastructure support community
development where farmers and workers live, and increase or
protect the livelihood options and services available to farmers,
workers, and their families.

8. 8 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
2.2 Research Agenda
The purpose of the research agenda is to articulate the
questions related to the poverty impacts of sustainability
standards that the project team most wants to see
answered. The research agenda will guide ISEAL members’
own monitoring and evaluation work, and serve as a
discussion document that encourages independent research
on questions of interest to ISEAL members.
A first set of questions in the research agenda is derived directly from
the conceptual framework: How effective are sustainability standards
at inducing the hypothesised changes along the seven pathways of
the conceptual framework? And, do these pathways ultimately lead
to significant and sustained improvements in human well-being? For
example,
 Do we see improved resource management, production,
and business resilience at the farm, producer group, or
enterprise level as a result of involvement in a standard
system?
 Are producer groups strengthened by certification, and do
strengthened producer groups more successfully support
smallholder farmers and their families?
 Do standard systems protect labour rights and support
increased wages?
 Does increased participation increase voice and control?
 What are the broader effects of standard systems on
communities?
 Do these changes support higher incomes, asset building,
better educational outcomes, higher quality of living, and
more choice, influence and control over their work and
livelihoods, for workers and farmers?
A second set of questions explores the extent and nature of
involvement of smallholders and workers in standard systems. If
sustainability standards do not reach or retain the poor, then they
will not be effective strategies for pro-poor development.
 To what extent are sustainability standards currently
reaching poor and marginalised farmers, enterprises, and
workers?
 What is the timing of the costs and benefits of standards
and certification to smallholders?
The shared conceptual
framework feeds a
research agenda
about poverty
reduction impacts.
This research agenda
is intended to guide
ISEAL members’ own
M&E work, and to
encourage
coordination of
research by ISEAL
members and
independent
researchers.

9. 9 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
 To what extent is the value of engaging with sustainability
standards dependent on subsidies?
 What is the turnover rate of smallholder participation in
sustainability standard systems? What drives decisions to
enter or leave?
Finally, a third set of questions explores the added value of the
different strategies employed by sustainability standards. For
example,
 What benefits does the certification process unlock for
producers, enterprises, and workers that would not
materialise with technical training alone?
 Does the link with standards and certification increase the
appeal, effectiveness, or success rate of training
programmes and other initiatives?
 Are relative benefits of different components of a
sustainability standard different for different types of
producers or enterprises? What is of most value to the
poor or to smallholders?

10. 10 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
What do we currently know about standard systems and the poor?
What do we know about the impacts of certification on pro-poor development? Existing
literature on the impacts of sustainability standards has much to say about this broad topic, but
how does it measure up against the questions of interest to ISEAL members? A review of existing
literature on the impacts of sustainability standards helped the project team identify:
- what questions of interest have been taken up by the research community?
- which questions remain under-researched or unclear?
- where are the research gaps?
A total of 15 publications–published between 2008 and 2012–were selected for review. Of these,
11 were compilation reports (bringing together the results of numerous individual studies) and
four were single studies. Two of these studies were peer reviewed; the remainder was grey
literature. The selected studies covered 30 commodities and processed products, and
represented 17 standards systems from around the world. Christine Carey of Carey Research
and Consulting conducted the review.
In general, the existing literature about impacts of sustainability standards on the poor is highly
skewed towards coffee and forestry, and towards studies of the Fairtrade and Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) systems. The evidence gap for other commodities and systems is
much larger.
Within that context, Carey found evidence that the expected changes along some of the
pathways in the conceptual framework do materialise. Sustainability standards can lead to
improved environmental performance, improvements in yields, increased quality, increased
productivity, and greater access to credit. There is also broad agreement in the studies reviewed
that certification has improved working conditions, including communication, hygiene, provision
and use of safety equipment, and safety training in forestry and agriculture. Four out of five
studies identified positive benefits for farmers and workers. However, evidence shows there are
concerns about the distribution of these benefits, and Carey found little evidence on the link
between better natural resource management and social impacts.
Carey also found that one of the most frequently studied questions was about the costs and
benefits of standards and certification and their effect on the poor. Of the studies identified, half
concluded that the social and economic benefits outweighed the immediate economic costs.
Fewer studies examined the precise timing of the costs and benefits of participating in a
sustainability standard and whether this poses a barrier to entry for smallholders and small
enterprises.
There is surprisingly little information available about the extent of poor and marginalised
smallholder participation across all sustainability standard systems or about the extent or effect
of multiple certification. Carey found no studies that compared the benefits to farmers or forest
operators of obtaining certification (and thus also market access) to the benefits of technical
training and capacity building alone.
While a wider examination of the literature on the impacts of standard systems would
undoubtedly reveal more studies, these points are all gaps that future research could address. To
help sustainability standards better understand how they might improve their impacts, it will be
important for future research to carefully investigate evidence that connects changes along the
pathways in the conceptual framework with desired changes at the household level.

11. 11 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
3 Shared Indicators
The conceptual framework and research agenda form a solid
platform of shared understanding to guide the next steps of
the project team's work to demonstrate and improve
poverty impacts of certification. A core activity has been to
identify a set of shared, or common, indicators that ISEAL
members can use to track and better understand their
contributions to poverty reduction, and begin to answer
questions in the research agenda.
The common indicators (see Annex) are designed to capture the
profile of farms, enterprises, producer groups, and households when
they enter the sustainability standard system, and to capture change
that these entities undergo during the period they are certified. The
indicators are built on a set of metrics (what is measured) that
directly relates to the conceptual framework and research agenda.
The majority of indicators that were selected come from indicators
already in use by ISEAL members, or already employed by other
organisations that have promoted harmonisation of indicators and
data protocols, e.g., Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA),
State of Sustainability Initiative (SSI), Finance Alliance for Sustainable
Trade (FAST), and Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS).
There are four main groups of indicators with associated metrics:
Reach: This set examines the reach of ISEAL member systems: how
many and what type of farmers, enterprises, and workers are
covered by the standard system. This includes differentiating
between male and female workers and identifying how many
smallholders and community-based enterprises are covered by the
systems. A metric regarding the number and type of certifications
held by each certificate holder will help us examine the collective
reach of ISEAL member systems without double counting.
Training and practice adoption: A second set examines a small
number of short-term outputs and outcomes of the standard
systems: provision of training and adoption of good agricultural,
health, and safety standards.
Outcomes along pathways: The third and largest set examines
expected outcomes along the seven pathways in the strategic
plan. Some of the outcome metrics relate to the certificate holder
(e.g. single certified farm, forest enterprise, producer group), while
others are specifically related to outcomes for individual smallholder
By reporting on the
same set of indicators,
and using common
definitions and
protocols wherever
possible, ISEAL will be
able to combine data
and learning from
various systems and
studies.

12. 12 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
farms or other small-scale operations that are grouped for the
purpose of certification.
Household-level impacts: The fourth and final set relates to the
household. These metrics cover the economic, human,
environmental, political, and social dimensions of well-being.
As ISEAL members move forward in building these common
indicators into their M&E systems and evaluation studies, we will be
able to pool information and data to get a picture of ISEAL’s
collective outreach to poor producers and workers. In addition, this
information will support discussions among members and their
implementation partners about how to improve the involvement of
and benefits for marginalised producers.
4 Next Steps
In the upcoming years ISEAL and its members will put their
vision, direction, and indicators to work by undertaking
studies that measure the contribution of certification to pro-
poor development. ISEAL will commission three outcome
and impact evaluation studies that will be implemented by
independent research partners.
The objective of these studies is two-fold. First, they will provide
evidence about the contribution of sustainability standards to
poverty reduction. Second, they will allow standards systems to test
methodologies and promote consistency and coordination in the
approaches that ISEAL members use in assessing the poverty and
livelihood outcomes and impacts of their systems.
These longitudinal studies will take place in East Africa, Indonesia,
and the Andes and will track progress over two to three years. Their
focus will be on the early costs and benefits of certification. The goal
will be to understand how and whether the process of being trained
in and then certified to a standard leads to improvements in well-
being at the household level. We will specifically investigate:
 Changes along the pathways in the conceptual
framework, and
 Resulting increases in household income, asset building,
and choice, influence, and/or control over production
decisions and livelihood strategies.
We will use the information and understanding generated from
members’ monitoring systems, the three commissioned studies, and

13. 13 Working Together to Demonstrate & Improve Poverty Impacts
other existing literature to foster debate and collaboration between
certification systems, their stakeholders, and other development
practitioners about how to improve the effectiveness of certification
in bringing about pro-poor development.
The project team will also continue to encourage engaged learning
and sharing among ISEAL members and the greater research
community that investigates the impacts of sustainability standards
systems. To that end, the ISEAL Secretariat has already created a
listserv for researchers, now numbering over 200 participants, and
organized a first workshop for researchers. These efforts will
strengthen and expand in the coming years.