The Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) ‘aims to drive positive change across the tea sector and ensure that our members’ tea comes from sustainable sources. Membership is open to any tea packing company that sells tea to markets in the EU, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand.
As part of the FLEGT process, the EU establishes bilateral Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with developing countries to guarantee that wood exported to the EU is legal. In addition, the VPA supports partner countries in improving their own regulation and forest governance procedures.
The VPAs includes 3 main elements:
The Better Cotton Standard System was designed by the Better Cotton Intiative (BCI) to entrench sustainable development goals within the global cotton industry, to encourage good practice and to establish better cotton as a sustainable mainstream commodity.
The Standard System defines better cotton through a set of production principles and criteria - these say that better cotton is produced by farmers who:
The Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) has developed a certification scheme for bioenergy and bio-based products usings RSB's set of standards and principles.
RSB Principles
Bonsucro is a set of standards that tackle the environmental and social impact of sugar production and processing.
Bonsucro’s production standards are based on 5 principles:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) declaration is a policy commitment by member governments to: improve the investment climate; encourage Multi National Enterprises (MNEs) contributions to social and economic development; and minimise and resolve difficulties from their operations. The guidelines are supported by a network of National Contact Points (NCP's), agencies established to help governments adhere to the guidelines.
The International Finance Corporation (the private sector investment body of the World Bank) has developed a set of Performance Standards to review the suitability of projects for direct financing. If a project is not expected to meet the standards over a ‘reasonable period of time’ then the IFC will not provide finance.
There are also several types of activity that the IFC does not finance e.g. production/trade of weapons, alcohol, tobacco, illegal products or activities.The Performance Standards are based on 8 areas:
The EITI seeks to set a global standard for transparency in oil, gas and mining and is applicable to national governments. The EITI has a number of principles and indicators that are predominantly centred on improving transparency and accountability in the extractive industries.
The EITI maintains the EITI standard, which was updated in May 2013. Countries implement the EITI Standard to ensure full disclosure of taxes and other payments made by producing oil, gas and mining companies. These payments are disclosed in an annual EITI Report.
All ICMM members are required to implement the Sustainable Development Framework. This includes integrating a set of 10 principles and six supporting position statements into corporate policy, as well as setting up transparent and accountable reporting practices.
Principles
The UN Global Compact (GC) was launched in July 2000 and is a commitment by companies to incorporating environment and development principles within their business structures. Open to any company, The UN Global Compact is a ‘practical framework for the development, implementation, and disclosure of sustainability policies and practices’.
