The chapter studies the impact that human rights due diligence (HRDD) has on voluntary sustainability standards (VSS). This chapter illustrates isomorphic pressures among VSS that stem both from HRDD and benchmarking initiatives enrolling HRDD to advance social and environmental objectives. Private schemes extend key requirements to non-certified volumes and firms to account for human rights responsibilities of entities at different levels of the value chain. This allows schemes to better fit in firms’ HRDD systems as they cover risks for more value chain entities. VSS themselves enact enhanced due diligence accounting for their own HRDD responsibilities vis-à-vis impact generated by members and certified firms. By strengthening efforts in the provision of collaborative tools between firms at different levels in the value chain, VSS’ function is partially re-aligning, testifying to their resilience at a juncture in which they face criticism and competitive pressures from other private tools. VSS also exercise non-regulatory activities such as offering fora for engagement, remediation and sharing costs of social and environmental compliance.

The introduction presents the subject matter of the book, the structure of the volume, and the questions it attempts to answer. Among these questions, the book investigates the relation and extent of complementarity between VSS and international law rules in the social and environmental domains, as well as trade. It aims to understand the modalities of public use of VSS in market regulation, their complementarity with EU rules and their implications. The book then studies how EU internal market and WTO legal regimes can control, coordinate and review VSS. In particular it proposes a possible interpretation of EU and WTO legal rules and meta-rules, in view of addressing the trade barrier effects of VSS and to possibly scale-up their effectiveness.

The chapter summarises the main findings of the volume and illustrates possible venues, and their limitations, in the regulation of VSS.

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) play an important role in the structure of cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire where climate change and land use pressures threaten to reduce supplies. The literature examining the participation of cocoa farmers in certification schemes has primarily emphasised the economic gains farmers perceive from joining these schemes and has offered less insight into the other determinants. These gains, however, are often subject to price volatility, offering only a partial explanation of what drives farmers to join and stay in certification programs. In this chapter, we evaluate household survey data to examine the characteristics of farmers who invest in VSS certification and the outcomes from adoption, including changes in production and management practices at the household level and subsequent environmental and economic outcomes. Using a Logit model, we identify factors that determine farmer adoption of VSS. The study found that socio-economic characteristics (age and sex of the household head, size of household, level of education of the head) and farm-specific factors such as size of land devoted to cocoa cultivation determine farmers’ adoption of certification programs in Côte d'Ivoire.

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) seek to improve social and economic outcomes in developing nations through voluntary commitments by firms located in these countries, who can advertise their adherence to the standard through certification and associated labels. VSS are a potential instrument to help achieve some of the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but the current empirical evidence on their effectiveness is mixed. Distinguishing between Fair Trade VSS developed by non-governmental organizations and corporate-backed private VSS, this chapter disentangles the possible channels through which these two types of VSS regimes may impact on trade and, in turn, on SDGs. We review the evidence in the light of these channels, finding important differences between the two categories of VSS.