Indian National Platform on Private Sustainability Standards

About the Platform

The India National Platform on Private Sustainability Standards has been initiated under the Secretarial oversight of Quality Council of India (QCI) to facilitate dialogue between core public and private stakeholders on how to maximize the sustainable development benefits and market access opportunities of private sustainability standards (PSS), whilst addressing potential challenges and cost of PSS implementation, in particular for small-scale producers. The work of the platform under the leadership of Dr. Ravi Singh, Secretary-General, QCI, has been appreciated on record by the UN Forum on Sustainability Standards.

This Platform has been the first platform under the aegis of the United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards (UNFSS) – an initiative of 5 UN agencies: FAO, ITC, UNCTAD, UNEP and UNIDO – with the understanding that this National Platform is a demand-driven, national public-private partnership initiative with India being the first country to set up a platform to tackle to issue of VSS/PSS.

Structure of the Platform

Principal Organs:
1. Multi-Stakeholder Assembly
2. Steering Council
3. Secretariat
4. Sectoral Committees

Subsidiary Organs: may be established as necessary.

Activities of the Indian PSS Platform

(Detailed purposes and objectives can be found in Chapter II of the Charter of the Platform)

a. Institution building:

Through the Charter which highlights the purposes, principles, values, organs, procedures and budgetary norms of the Platform.

b. Knowledge creation:

(i) Through inclusive consultations of its stakeholders by means of principal
organs of the Platform.
(ii) Through data driven research and studies in priority product groups.

c. Knowledge sharing:

(i) Through national and international forums and other higher education institutions.
(ii) Through the Platform’s web presence.

d. Promotion of PSS for achievement of SDGs:

By liaising with the government and intergovernmental organizations.

e. Capacity development

(i) External: workshops to develop capacity of smallholders and producers for awareness and openness to V/PSS.
(ii) Internal: capacity development training of Secretariat in areas of global governance, multi-stakeholder processes, and international cooperation.

f. Harmonizing initiatives:

Harmonization, benchmarking, and national interpretation activities for standards for better shaping of Indian PSS landscape.