ISEAL Alliance

Consultation Period: 1 November - 31 December 2011

ISEAL is developing a new Code of Good Practice that aims to make assurance a more effective tool to support social and environmental impact. The first consultation on the draft Code of Good Practice for Assessing Compliance with Social and Environmental Standards opened on 1 November 2011.

Why should you get involved?

There are a number of reasons why you may be interested in participating in this consultation... If you are:

• an ISEAL member, you will need to comply with this code;
• a member of another standards organisation, you will be interested in alternative options for assurance;
• a member of an NGO, you will be interested in new ways that participants can benefit from assurance;
• a policy maker, you will be interested in innovations in assurance;
• a business person, you will be interested in how assurance can be made more accessible (more markets in more regions);
• a consumer, you will be interested in transparency of the assurance process.

The term assurance describes any process that assesses compliance with a standard, including the processes of verification, certification and accreditation. The need for an Assurance Code has arisen following a number of years of discussion on the issue, and the realisation that in order for standards organisations to scale up, their assurance systems need to accommodate the changing needs of this growing sector. The members of the Assurance Code Steering and Technical committees envisage an assurance instrument that embodies innovative practices in assurance such as risk management, participatory guarantee systems, and other benefits to stakeholders, such as knowledge sharing and data gathering. At the same time, the draft Assurance Code will set minimum requirements for credible assurance for the social and environmental standards movement.

The draft Assurance Code aims to support assurance models that are fit-for-purpose for different types of standards systems; not a one-model-fits-all approach. We are putting out an early draft version of the Assurance Code for consultation because we believe that it is important to provide stakeholders with the opportunity to have a major influence on the final document. The current draft embeds some new concepts and it will be useful to receive feedback on whether you think these are interesting ideas to develop further.

How to Participate:

To participate in the consultation you should start by downloading the Draft Assurance Code. There are a number of ways you can add your comments and give feedback on the Draft Assurance Code, including:

• Complete the Assurance Code Survey
• Download the fillable comment version - includes questions and comment fields embedded in the document
• Send comments directly to: consultation [at] isealalliance [dot] org or;
• Download the Comment Submission Form - use it to organise your comments and send it to consultation [at] isealalliance [dot] org
• Attend a webinar on the Assurance Code at 3pm (GMT) on 15 November 2011.

For more information and resources about the Assurance Code please visit the Assurance Code web page.

IMAGE: Volkopi Coffee community outreach specialist. Copyright Noah Jackson, 2011, Rainforest Alliance