Social Sustainability Certification. Third‐Party and In‐House Certification

Table of Content

The need for Social Sustainability

How third-party certification works

Critique on third-party certification

Is in-house certification better than that?

Conclusion

References

The need for Social Sustainability

Social sustainability certificates are used to credibly demonstrate sustainable and responsible approaches to the environment and employees in the supply chain. This is necessary because many consumer goods or raw materials are grown and manufactured in developing countries before being sold to other markets. Developing countries often do not have comparable laws on environmental and worker protection. Likewise, there are hardly any measures that can counteract social inequality, child labor and systematic poverty. Small-scale individual farmers, as in the case of cocoa or coffee cultivation, work hard every day and can hardly build up reserves due to the price pressure of the world market and large corporations. Even school education for their children is not affordable (CSR Asia, 2014). While the demand for goods such as cocoa and coffee continues to rise worldwide, it will still hardly be possible for the next generation to have a higher income and a better future.

These conditions of cultivation and competition create difficult living conditions and threaten at the same time the adequate supply of the coveted raw materials for the industry, for example when, in the case of cocoa, the younger generation does not want to take over the farms (Millard, 2012).

This essay aims to elaborate on the question if external certification is the right tool to improve the situation in the industry or if buying companies should try to promote their own standards and mechanisms.

How third-party certification works

External certification means that companies are allowed to put a seal on their products to indicate that certain standards have been met in the production process (Millard, 2012). Due to the global supply chains, it is very time-consuming for companies to check production standards and compliance with target values themselves. In addition, it was costly for suppliers if many customers with different standards wanted to carry out regular audits at their sites. As a result, external certification has become a big business. Fairtrade in particular is known by many western consumers and stands for credible standards for which customers are generally willing to pay a little more for the products (Kultalahti et al., 2016).

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