AccountAbility and the ISEAL Alliance proudly launched the Strategy for Scaling Up the Impacts of Voluntary Standards in Zurich on June 8. The Strategy, which was supported by Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), is the culmination of an 18 month process to identify trends affecting the use of voluntary sustainability standards and to develop a collective strategy for responding to those trends. The process to develop the strategy included extensive interviews and focus groups with business leaders, producer capacity building organisations, donors investing in sustainability standards systems and consumer research. The Strategy outlines a coordinated approach to expanding the implementation and acceptance of social and environmental standards on a global level in order to increase the number of producers and enterprises that benefit from sustainable practices and the demand for goods produced using credible standards.
 
The four goals of the strategy are:

-- Position credible standards systems as leaders in achieving sustainable development

-- Leverage the support of key external actors for scaling up

-- Increase producer and enterprise access to standards

-- Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of standards systems 

Download the Scaling Up Executive Summary here to learn more.