Sustainable Commodity Initiative

Key Message

The Sustainable Commodity Initiative aims to build effectiveness across voluntary approaches to sustainable commodity production and trade by promoting good governance, impact analysis, information exchange as well as policy and initiative development.

Sustainable Commodity Initiative

What's New in the Sustainable Commodity Initiative?

The Sustainable Commodity Initiaitive: SCI Rationale and Road-map: 2008-2011
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During 2007 the IISD/UNCTAD Sustainable Commodity Initiative welcomed new coordinating partners: The International Institute for Environment and Development as well as AidEnvironment. Both institutions bring a wealth of project and research expertise related to voluntary and market-based initiatives in sustainable commodity production and trade. The SCI Rationale and Road-map: 2008-2011 sets forth the strategic vision for the Sustainable Commodity Initiative for the next three years building from this new partnership base.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) launched the Sustainable Commodity Initiative (SCI) in December 2002 in recognition of the fundamental link between commodities and sustainable development. The principal objective of the SCI is to improve the social, environmental and economic sustainability of commodities production and trade by developing global multi-stakeholder strategies on a sector-by-sector basis.

Despite a rapid growth in the diversity and number of NGO-, government- and industry-led initiatives addressing sustainability within commodities markets over the past two decades, there has been comparatively little coordination at the international level—either between initiatives or the diverse approaches they have adopted. The development of multi-stakeholder, market-based mechanisms at the global level thus represents an important and, so far, largely unexplored avenue for improving the social, environmental and economic impacts of commodities trade in an integrated and coherent manner. The SCI aims to take advantage of this opportunity by providing a multi-stakeholder forum for the identification of concrete sustainability strategies and instruments at the global level.

Through a process of workshops and meetings, producer, NGO, industry and government participants will be invited to explore:

sustainability with respect to social and environmental issues from market structure and supply chain perspectives;
opportunities for collaboration among existing sustainability initiatives; and
new global instruments for the sustainable management of commodities trade through public/private/civil society partnerships.

The SCI will provide a preliminary but significant testing ground for proposed initiatives through a process of stakeholder feedback and in-depth analytical research. By leading a constructive and proactive process, the SCI hopes to provide a foundation for further multi-stakeholder collaboration and the eventual implementation of novel global strategies for addressing commodities problems at large.

Partially Funded By

The Sustainable Commodity Initiative (SCI)

The Sustainable Commodity Initiative was launched in 2003 through an IISD-UNCTAD Partnership and has provided a concrete vehicle for SMART project development and implementation. The SCI, now a partnership of IISD-UNCTAD-AidEnvironment and UNCTAD, aims to promote sustainable commodity production and trade by improving awareness of, learning between and appropriate policy responses to voluntary initiatives operative in the commodities sector. To see what the SCI is currently doing and learn more about voluntary initiatives operating in commodity supply chains, please visit the SCI Web site.

Key SCI projects:

Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST)

The Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST) is an association of socially oriented financial service providers and other stakeholders committed to promoting improved access to finance for producers of sustainable commodities. More specifically, FAST aims to improve producer access to "small and medium enterprise trade finance" by providing a central point of contact, cooperation and information between financial service providers, producers and related stakeholders in international supply chains. To become a member of FAST or learn more, visit the FAST Web site.

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Key Message