Implementation LITTLE RESEARCH INTO IMPACT – LET
REPORTED VIOLATIONS OF
ALONE EVIDENCE OF POSITIVE IMPACTS
CERTIFICATION STANDARDS
While certification schemes claim they have a positive impact, systematic reviews of the evidence by academics and other researchers typically point to ‘sparse, limited, and often context-specific benefits’ for rights holders such as local communities and famers1 and, particularly regarding forestry, mixed and inconclusive results.2 Schemes themselves often communicate front and center the uptake or scale of their operations – such as the number of forests, plantations or farms that have been certified or countries that they cover – as evidence of their success or ‘impact’.3 However, assessments of whether they are achieving their desired impact on people or the planet are of varying quality,4 with even Fairtrade, which seems committed to impact measurement, apparently having difficulty evaluating the extent to which its model produces positive outcomes for the people the scheme seeks to benefit.5
Certification schemes often fall short not only in their definition of the standards themselves, as discussed above, but – even more importantly – in how those standards are interpreted, implemented and enforced. For example, numerous case studies from across forest regions show that RSPO certification has been granted to companies that have been reported to be involved in deforestation, land disputes, destruction of Indigenous livelihoods, agrochemical pollution and cutting communities off from their drinking water supplies.6
1
MSI Integrity (2020) p.193. See also Oya, C., et al. (2017) and Petrokofsky, G., & Jennings, S. (2018).
2 See eg Moog, S., Spicer, A., & Böhm, S. (2014) and Morgans, C. L., et al. (2018). 3 See eg ISCC, Home [Website], Rainforest Alliance, Our impacts [Website], RSPO, Impact: RSPO in numbers [Website] and RTRS, Impact [Website]. 4 MSI Integrity (2020) pp.196,201-202 5 MSI Integrity (2020) pp.202-203
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The following case studies show how the RTRS, ProTerra, FSC and RSPO have all certified companies that have been accused of having links to environmental destruction and/or human rights abuses.
‘[R]esults on environmental and biodiversity performance are in many cases limited … or variable…. In some cases, certification schemes have spurred more intensive and degrading landuse practice … and caused higher deforestation in neighbouring old-growth forest areas.’ - IPBES (2019) p.44
6 See eg Greenpeace (2019a) and World Rainforest Movement (2018, 16 November).
Chapter 2: Key aspects that determine certification schemes’ effectiveness and credibility
