In the past two decades, markets grew to accommodate no less than 435 “eco-labels” or standards such as Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, and UTZ Certified, that claim some aspect of sustainability. They constitute multi-billion dollar markets and the world’s leading food and beverage companies, such as Mars, Mondelez, McDonalds, Unilever, and Nestle have made public commitments to such initiatives. Yet, no matter how rigorous the standard used by such labels, their processes differ significantly and there is not much credible scientific data about their impacts (i.e. using good protocols, addressing counterfactuals, statistical significance). The data that have been collected are often not easily comparable to other data on the same topic because researchers tend to follow their own individual definitions and inclinations. The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) set out to address that challenge and this report covers 12 countries and nearly 18,000 consistent farm and village-level surveys. COSA is a neutral global consortium of organizations whose mission is to accelerate sustainability in agriculture via practical assessment tools that advance our understanding of social, economic, and environmental impacts. There are high, and perhaps unreasonable, expectations for sustainability initiatives and standards to be a complete solution for our planet’s agricultural economic, social and environmental challenges. One of the clearest understandings emerging from COSA’s work is that the success of a particular sustainability intervention is often dependent on the particular context. Sometimes the application of the standard results in modest or no improvement and sometimes it offers measurable benefits. There are also entry costs, not just monetary, that can be challenging for the poor. The voluntary sustainability standards, like most initiatives, are not a magic formula and require a commitment to ongoing capacity-building and long-term investment if they are to improve the conditions of farmers and their communities. Nevertheless, despite their imperfections, they are among the best tools currently available in agriculture; in part because they serve as viable market mechanisms to transmit value (perhaps even to convey ethics to some extent) and in part because they can play diverse roles in the food and agriculture value chains
