Voluntary sustainability standards, also known as private standards, deal with occupational safety, environmental, social or animal welfare issues. They have become a critical issue in international trade and the promotion of sustainable development strategies.
Against this background, five United Nations bodies, comprising the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Trade Centre, the United Nations Environment Programme, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and UNCTAD, have come together to launch the United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards (UNFSS), based on existing mandates.
The Forum will be a platform providing information, analysis and capacity-building assistance on these standards, with a particular focus on their potential value as tools for developing countries to achieve specific sustainable development goals. It will also address potential trade or development obstacles that these standards may create, with a particular emphasis on their impact on small-scale producers and less developed countries.
Purpose of the Briefing Session on the future UNFSS
The briefing will outline the objectives, possible structure, suitable commodity focus, and main activities of the future Forum, as well as, the main clusters of stakeholders to be represented therein. In particular, the briefing will be an opportunity for delegates to provide guidance on the key substantive issues, commodity groups and main target stakeholders for future Forum activities. In this regard, it would be appreciated if feedback and guidance from capital-based public and private stakeholders in your countries could be sought to share at the briefing session.
UNFSS will be demand-driven, in response the information needs and concerns of its participants, in particular representatives of the public and private sectors in developing countries.
The Forum will not limit its discussion and activities to compliance issues regarding existing sustainability standards, but will contextualize such standards against a threefold perspective: (a) couching VSS into the developmental context in exporting developing countries, with a particular focus on poverty alleviation in the least developed countries (LDCs) and strengthening the capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises; (b) examining sustainability standards within the overall context of the life cycle of a product and related services and (c) placing such standards in a context of avoidance, minimization and management of real risks.
UNFSS will be open to all United Nations Member States and relevant stakeholders from the private sector and civil society. The Forum particularly seeks to facilitate the participation of key public and private decision-makers from developing countries, with a particular focus on LDCs.
