Design and governance of private sustainability standards in global food and wood systems

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS), or ecolabels, have emerged as a response to the current global environmental crisis. VSS are a private governance mechanism for the sustainable management of global value chains. They cover a large number of products and are important in global markets, especially in the food and wood sectors. Yet, their actual impact on sustainability is unclear and depends on how VSS operate (design and governance of VSS). This PhD project will analyse how differences in VSS governance result in differences in sustainability outcomes. To do so, the PhD will first develop a VSS classification system based on their governance attributes, focusing on VSS that are active in the selected food and wood sectors (coffee, cocoa, tea, oil palm and wood). The developed VSS classification system will be used in the research to evaluate how the institutional design and governance of VSS shapes particular social, economic and environmental sustainability effects at the macro- and micro-level, looking at Indonesia as a case study; and to evaluate potential sustainability tradeoffs between the social, economic and environmental dimensions. Ultimately, this research aims to identify the VSS governance practices that are most effective in creating positive sustainability outcomes in global food and wood systems.