Making Sustainable Development a Reality: the Role of Social and Ecological Standards
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removal within an unspecified time frame (farming subsidies of the industrialised countries),
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voluntary undertaking without monitoring (corporate responsibility and accountability),
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increase within an unspecified time frame (development assistance of the industrialised countries to 0.7% of GNP).
Standards perform a wide variety of functions: •
facilitating learning and innovation: learning in the sense of achieving a sustainable improvement in behaviour is only possible in the presence of a parameter for measurement, together with an indicator, that provide an objective standard for the measurement of behaviour. Innovations can only be tested and further developed if and when objective standards are in place to measure the degree of convergence with, or divergence from, target values.
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monitoring instruments: compliance or non-compliance with directives can only be ascertained with reference to criteria that can be objectively measured through corresponding parameters.
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management instruments: the key function of management is to provide staff with orientation. To this end, it is absolutely essential that objectively measurable standards of performance be laid down or negotiated (management by objectives).
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supporting communication and motivation in-house: clear agreements facilitate communication within a company, and goals that bear a clear relation to wider social values (e.g. sustainable development) raise staff motivation.
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supporting communication with business partners and clients: clearly worded and transparently monitored standards make it easier for clients and business partners to obtain information on a company's corporate values and policy, i.e. on what a company stands for and how it can be expected to act.
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reducing transaction costs: the costs of information procurement when contracts are being entered into can be reduced considerably where clearly defined standards are agreed upon and can be verified transparently.
Standards that are defined in relation to measurable criteria, are recognisably derived from the sustainable development vision, and are combined with a corresponding monitoring system, are a sure sign of modern management.
4.3
Designing Standards Initiatives for Sustainable Development - Options
A variety of organisations in various fields are engaged in a range of efforts to design and apply standards that concretise the sustainable development vision, thus making it more binding. These activities are referred to here collectively as standards initiatives for sustainable development. The term “standards initiatives” is deliberately broad in scope. It includes both legislative initiatives, such as the EU Directive on Bioproducts, certification systems such as forest certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), voluntary undertakings by corporations to comply with prescribed standards, such as the Global Compact proposed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and standards put in place and
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