ISEAL Alliance

Brazil is a country already strongly engaged in moving to more socially and environmentally responsible practices. It has some of the strongest environmental laws in the world, an effective NGO movement and a supportive financial sector. At the same time, the scale of the social and environmental challenges facing Brazil are significant, particularly in managing the growth of commodity agriculture sectors like soy and cattle. It was not by coincidence that ISEAL chose to launch the Impacts Code at a conference on Sustainability Standards in São Paulo on 16 November.

The event, co-organised by the SAN member Imaflora, Amigos da Terra Brazil and ISEAL, was an opportunity for a cross-section of 100 Brazilian leaders in the sustainability standards field to exchange views on the role of voluntary standards, measuring their impacts and strategies for increasing cooperation and improving effectiveness. This is not a new discussion in Brazil and part of the conversation focused on the potential for a renewed effort to create a national platform in Brazil. The platform would coordinate information and capacity building for producers to move towards increasingly sustainable production. ISEAL sees Brazil strategically as a priority country for engagement, one where there is great potential to support a more coordinated enabling environment for transforming specific sectors through the use of voluntary standards.

The Impacts Code launch event certainly served to reaffirm our sense of the dynamic and forward-looking engagement from civil society, companies and the financial sector. If you would like a print copy of the Impacts Code or would like multiple copies to distribute to your networks or contacts, please contact the ISEAL Secretariat.