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Certifiably Sustainable? The Role of Third-Party Certification Systems: Report of a Workshop (2010) / Chapter Skim
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2 Certification's Place in the Toolbelt
Pages 9-18

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From page 9...
... By the same token, there are certain tools that certification is not. One workshop participant cautioned that it is not a hammer -- because it is a voluntary mechanism that appeals primarily to the top performers in the market, it tends not to be effective at forcing producers and firms to comply.
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From page 10...
... • Direct government regulation prescribing practices or performance COMPARISON OF REGULATION AND CERTIFICATION TOOLS TO INFLUENCE BEHAVIOR National and international law, where it exists, has failed to control wasteful and harmful effects of production of products and services. Certification programs have emerged as a new tool to engage market forces in promoting environmental and social sustainability objectives.
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From page 11...
... Environmental regulation in the United States and to a slightly lesser degree in Europe mainly focuses on control of the externalities of production, specifically the offsite impacts of polluting processes or the marketing of food, drugs, or pesticides whose consumption and use by people can cause health or safety risks. In the areas of natural resource extraction or harvesting, the U.S.
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From page 12...
... This evidence led to American con­ sumers paying more attention to food choices, and producers, manufacturers, and marketers naturally responded to this interest by tailoring their products to reflect these contemporary public health issues. Two landmark reports at the end of the decade, The Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, and Diet and Health: Implications for Reducing Chronic Disease Risk, spurred renewed efforts to reform nutrition labeling.
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From page 13...
...  certIfIcatIon's Place In tHe toolBelt were increasingly being marketed to a health­conscious public. Marketers view the principal display panel on food packages as "real estate" and thus reserved for sales promotion.
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From page 14...
... These entities are businesses who sign on to certification programs and their environmental or social objectives to secure economic advantage but also to demonstrate corporate social responsibility, burnish their reputation or brand, and possibly get ahead of the regulatory curve. Some contend that businesses tend to support certification in areas where government regulations are most prescriptive and the certification rules are an incremental improvement over requirement practices (see dimensions and sectors Being certified in this volume)
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From page 15...
... It was noted that in the natural resource conservation area, measuring effectiveness is especially difficult; for example, fish potentially conserved by marine certification standards are hard to count. Many expressed the opinion that defining scientifically sound and persuasive measures of biodiversity protection was an important need for many certification programs.
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From page 16...
... The growing number of certification programs is itself a challenge in crowding the field of programs in search of funds. TRANSITIONS FROM VOLUNTARy CERTIFICATION TO GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT OR REGULATION In some cases, the government administers public programs akin to certification like EPA's Energy Star program.
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From page 17...
... In all of these cases, the work of organizations involved in certification of practices or information disclosure protocols aids the development of regulations and speeds the achievement of public benefits. As later chapters explore, certification programs may need to evolve to have a closer relationship to governments and public regulatory programs, where each plays a complementary role in developing standards, rewarding compliant parties and eliminating noncompliant parties through regulation.
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Key Terms

  • certification standards
  • government regulation
  • direct government
  • voluntary certification
  • process certification

  • certification program
  • regulatory programs
  • public participation
  • government regulations
  • regulatory decisions

  • consumer education
  • market forces
  • market mechanisms
  • environmental regulation
  • production processes

  • greenhouse gas
  • consumer behavior
  • resource extraction
  • purchasing decisions
  • nongovernmental organizations

  • supply chain
  • fish certification
  • certification process
  • marine certification
  • certification provides

  • certification rules
  • incorporating certification
  • sponsored certification
  • define certification
  • certification tools


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