Melissa Vogt - Sustainability Certification Schemes in the Agricultural and Natural Resource Sectors: Outcomes for Society and the Environment

This book provides a balanced critique of a range of international sustainability certification schemes across nine agricultural and natural resource industries.

Certification schemes set standards through intramarket private and multistakeholder mechanisms, and while third-party verification is often compulsory, certification schemes are regulated voluntarily rather than legislatively. This volume examines the intricacies of certification schemes and the issues they seek to address and provides the context within which each scheme operates. While a distinction between sustainability certifications and extra-markets or intrabusiness codes of conducts is made, the book also demonstrates how both are often working towards similar sustainability objectives. Each chapter highlights a different sector, including animal welfare, biodiversity, biofuels, coffee, fisheries, flowers, forest management and mining, with the contributions offering interdisciplinary perspectives and utilising a wide range of methodologies. The realities, achievements and challenges faced by varying certification schemes are discussed, identifying common outcomes and findings and concluding with recommendations for future practice and research.

The book is aimed at advanced students, researchers and professionals in agribusiness, natural resource economics, sustainability assessment and corporate social responsibility.

Melissa Vogt has been involved with and considering outcomes associated with sustainability certifications since 2006. She completed doctoral studies early 2019. She has experience as a consultant to small and medium-sized business in developing countries; and as an evaluator for community-based projects and programmes, and for commercialised scientific projects. She has taught in higher education in Rwanda and Australia and is currently based at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Forest Management Auditing
Certification of Forest Products and Services
Edited by Lucio Brotto and Davide Pettenella

Agricultural Land Use and Natural Gas Extraction Conflicts
A Global Socio-Legal Perspective
Madeline Taylor and Tina Hunter

Tropical Bioproductivity
Origins and Distribution in a Globalized World
David Hammond

The Commons in a Glocal World
Global Connections and Local Responses
Edited by Tobias Haller, Thomas Breu, Tine De Moor, Christian Rohr, and
Heinzpeter Zonj

Natural Resource Conflicts and Sustainable Development
Edited by E. Gunilla Almered Olsson and Pernille Gooch

Sustainable Governance of Wildlife and Community Based Natural
Resource Management
From Economic Principles to Practical Governance
Brian Child

Sustainability Certification Schemes in the Agricultural and
Natural Resource Sectors
Outcomes for Society and the Environment
Edited by Melissa Vogt

For more information on books in the Earthscan Studies in Natural
Resource Management series, please visit the series page on the Routledge website: www.routledge.com/books/series/ECNRM/

Sustainability Certification
Schemes in the Agricultural
and Natural Resource Sectors

Outcomes for Society and the Environment

First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2019 selection and editorial matter, Melissa Vogt; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Melissa Vogt to be identified as the author of the editorial matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-1-138-57297-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-70173-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Part I
Cultural considerations associated with sustainability certifications

PART II
Evaluating biodiversity outcomes

PART III
Standard development and verification-based examples and considerations

PART IV
Industry or certification specific reviews, evaluations and recommendations

PART V
Industry and country specific primary research, evaluation and recommendations

PART VI
Summarising outcomes for society and the environment

Editor

Melissa Vogt has considered outcomes associated with sustainability certifications since 2005. She commenced studies in 2007/2008 to consider the influence of certifications in producer countries, and before that time considered the influence of certifications on consumer education and approaches to national and international trade. She completed doctoral studies early 2019. She has worked as a consultant for small and medium sized business in developing countries and as an evaluator for community based projects and programmes for commercialised scientific projects. She has taught in higher education in Rwanda and Australia and is currently based at the University of New South Wales.

Contributors

Shannon Arnold has worked in marine conservation and small-scale fisheries research and advocacy since 2007. She leads the Marine Program at the Ecology Action Centre (EAC) with a focus on ensuring responsible, equity-based fisheries policy at the local, national and international level. She also is focused on opportunities for community empowerment in the sustainable use of marine resources. She and the EAC have a long history of engagement in eco-certifications in Canada and globally. Shannon has a background in community organising with small-scale fishery communities in Canada and internationally as well as ethnographic and political-ecological research.

Graeme Auld is an Associate Professor, Public Affairs Research Excellence Chair, and Director of Carleton Universitys School of Public Policy and Administration. He has broad interests in comparative environmental politics and global environmental governance, with a particular focus on the emergence, evolution and impacts of transnational private governance regimes. He is co-author (with Benjamin Cashore and Deanna Newsom) of