Featured Reviews

Jason Potts, former Senior Associate at IISD and the founder of the SSI, created the SSI Review, which has become the SSI’s flagship product. The SSI Review provides supply chain decision makers and policy-makers with high-level data and analysis to navigate the increasingly complex field of sustainability standards.

The SSI Review is an independent, evidence-based series of reports on the characteristics and market performance of voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs). The reports can be categorized as sector or theme based. Sectoral SSI Reviews examine how VSSs operating in a specific commodity sector are moving it towards sustainability while thematic SSI Reviews focus on examining how VSS are addressing specific sustainability issues.

Our data is collected through a collaborative process with a wide variety of data providers. The SSI team works closely with initiatives to provide the greatest degree of flexibility and sensitivity to specific conditions while maintaining objectivity in our analysis.

We have also developed an innovative methodology the CARE analysis, which stands for Coverage, Assurance, Responsiveness and Engagement, to analyse how VSSs contribute to sustainable development.

Leveraging Voluntary Sustainability Standards for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Agriculture: A Guide for Development Organizations Based on the Sustainable Development Goals

Our report, available in English and French, explains how voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) can be used as a tool to meet the SDGs and targets related to gender equality and women’s empowerment in agriculture.

Standards and the Extractive Economy

This report examines voluntary sustainability initiatives and their aim to promote sustainable production practices in the mining sector.

Standards and Biodiversity

The Standards and Biodiversity Report analyzes the criteria and market coverage of 15 major agricultural voluntary sustainability standards against key biodiversity parameters.

Standards and the Blue Economy

This report examines market and performance trends of the nine most prevalent seafood certification schemes.

Standards and the Green Economy

This report provides a bird’s-eye view of market and performance trends across 16 of the most prevalent standards initiatives operating across 10 different commodity sectors.

State of Sustainability Initiatives Review: Sustainability and Transparency

This report provides an overview of the system characteristics and market trends of 10 of the most mature voluntary sustainability initiatives in the forestry, coffee, tea, cocoa and banana sectors.