Better trade for sustainable development: The role of voluntary sustainability standards
30 August 2021
Dear participants,
I warmly welcome you to this webinar on “Better Trade for Sustainable Development: The Role of Voluntary Sustainability Standards”.
It is evident that a model based on economic progress only is insufficient to achieve a sustainable and equitable world for people and planet. That is why the Sustainable Development Goals are so important. They are our best compass to fulfill our development aspirations. For achieving the SDGs, international trade can and must play an important role.
The expansion of international trade has brought benefits across the globe. But at the same time, it has also led to adverse impacts, especially on the environment and social front. It is therefore essential to transform towards sustainable trade - when the adverse impacts of international trade are mitigated and controlled. This demands a profound transformation in the ways we produce and in the ways we consume. It also requires the mobilization of all communities and all tools at our disposal.
In recent years, Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) have emerged as new tools to address key sustainability challenges such as biodiversity, climate change, and human rights.
Today, there are more than 500 sustainability standards being used along global supply chains, covering a wide range of products and commodities. Standards can push the frontiers of best practices of sustainable production methods. They can also help to build trust in consumers and other stakeholders towards these practices. Yet, there are not only benefits in the utilization of sustainability standards; there are also risks and challenges.
In UNCTAD we pay particular attention to the risks of fragmentation of VSS, which can represent a challenge – even a hurdle - for developing countries, and in particular for small producers in these countries.
VSS can increase information and production costs and eventually exclude smallholders and producers in developing countries from global trade. This is the case when there is a plethora of different VSS requiring separate certification.
Beside these preexisting challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic implies further complications for developing countries as the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic are particularly severe in these countries.
Today we will launch the UNCTAD report “Better Trade for Sustainable Development: the role of VSS”. With this report, we want to advance the dialogue on how we can better harness sustainability standards towards the achievement of sustainable trade and the SDGs.
In a nutshell, this report has tried to answer the following questions:
- What are the possibilities and limitations of VSS to make international trade more sustainable, in particular with regards to developing countries development opportunities?
- What evidence do we have on the economic, social and environmental impacts of VSS on the ground, mostly in developing countries?
- What are the barriers to VSS uptake specifically in developing countries and how to overcome these barriers?
- What are the roles of policymakers and other stakeholders (for example NGOs, multinational organizations and donors... etc) in assisting in overcoming these barriers and maximizing the favourable impacts of VSS?
I take this opportunity to thank the authors of this report.
