Events

January 23, 2020

Enhancing CARICOM’s Export Opportunities with Sustainability Standards

In the interest of facilitating the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM)’s goal to strengthen trade-related quality infrastructure, the validation workshop held in Saint Lucia in 21-23 January 2020 aims to improve capacity in Standards and technical regulations development and implementation in CARICOM and to conduct a feasibility study for developing trade capacity enabling Sustainability Standards and associated conformity assessment modalities by the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), modelling the success of African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO). Part

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October 14, 2019

Unlocking the potential of Sustainability Standards in South Africa to achieve Sustainable Bioeconomy

The increasing attention towards bio-based economy is partly due to the existing production practices that are contributing significantly to environmental and climate problems. Global challenges like climate change, land and ecosystem degradation, coupled with a growing population is a turning point towards producing and consuming that respect the ecological boundaries of our planet. ‘Bioeconomy’ in this sense has become an important agenda in political and technological interests internationally and nationally as it is considered to have strong links with the

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October 7, 2019

2nd ICSTS: Moving towards the five C’s of Sustainability Standards Systems

Concept Note Programme in PDF Coherence, Collaboration, Cooperation, Convergence and Consensus were five of the most widely ‘referred to’ concepts that highlighted the key-takeaway of the 2nd International Convention on Sustainable Trade and Standards (ICSTS) held in Rio de Janeiro in September 2019. These are the 5 important C’s that could potentially reinforce the positive impacts of sustainability standards systems. Being one of the proud co-organizers of the 2nd ICSTS, the convention

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September 30, 2019

7-9 October 2019|International Trade Centre’s T4SD Forum

  Now in its sixth year, the annual Trade for Sustainable Development Forum is one of the leading global events focused on major trends in sustainable value chains and voluntary sustainability standards. Organized by the International Trade Centre (ITC), the T4SD Forum will again take place in conjunction with the WTO Public Forum, from 7-9 October.     How long before sustainability becomes the norm? This year, the T4SD Forum will reflect the new realities of international trade and focus on sustainability mainstreaming – the

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September 6, 2019

Fifth BioTrade Congress: Linking trade and biodiversity

To boost ambition and accelerate actions to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will host the 2019 Climate Summit on 23 September to meet the climate challenge. The UNCTAD Trade Forum is meant as a contribution to the Summit from the trade and developmental community. It will bring into focus the need for action on the means of implementation – finance, technology and capacity building – and the role of trade

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August 27, 2019

2nd International Convention on Sustainable Trade and Standards

The Brazilian Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology (Inmetro), the Federation of Industries of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Firjan) and the United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards (UNFSS)  proudly organizes the 2nd International Convention on Sustainable Trade and Standards Date: 16-18th of September 2019, Venue: Casa Firjan, Rua Guilhermina Guinle, 211 City: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Convention Page  

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April 11, 2019

Assessing the Perception and Willingness towards VSS

The considerable diversity of priorities associated with the uptake of Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) have captured significant interests for researchers to analyze the drivers that stimulated stakeholders to be certified (or not). Given the unclear distribution of benefits resulting from these sustainability certifications, smallholder farmers are striking economic actors in the value chains that have expressed unprecedented concerns. This is not to say that they do not see the value of adapting sustainability measures into their operations, but rather concerns

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February 21, 2019

Resurfacing Biodiversity, from a Sustainability Standards Perspective

Nearly half of the world’s population is directly dependent on biodiversity for their livelihoods. Today over 3.2 billion people depend on biodiversity for their livelihoods, but the globe’s biodiversity resources are being depleted at an alarming rate. In Europe alone, the cost of biodiversity loss is estimated about 3% of its GDP, or €450m (£400m), a year [1]. “If we are going to address the issue of biodiversity, we also have to look at the fundamental issues

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December 3, 2018

Andean Community expands its Sustainable Exports scope to Colombia, Bolivia and Ecuador.

On June 2018, the Andean Community Secretariat, together with UNFSS launched its first dialogue in Peru on ‘Sustainable Trade between Peru and the EU’ with the inception to support Peruvian SMEs exporters and policy makers into implementing sustainable measures in order to access the lucrative EU’s renowned “Sustainable” market. UNFSS supports three key outcomes in the region, policy dialogue among national and regional VSS stakeholders, research and analysis in the region, and capacity building activities to promote sustainable exports from

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November 20, 2018

Indonesia to ignite a national dialogue on VSS

Indonesia, represented by Badan Standardidasi Nasional (BSN) has been part of the UNFSS’s National Initiative network since 2016. BSN has been involved in several VSS-related activities and have also witnessed the launch of their counterpart’s National Platform. This November, Indonesia will be taking a leap forward into establishing an informed dialogue on VSS at national level. In collaboration with the German Development Institute (DIE) Managing Global Governance (MGG) programme, the International Seminar “Public Awareness and Internal Meeting on Voluntary Sustainability

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