title: An agenda for assessing and improving conservation impacts of sustainability standards in tropical agriculture.
abstract: Sustainability standards and certification serve to differentiate and provide market recognition to goods produced in accordance with social and environmental good practices, typically including practices to protect biodiversity. Such standards have seen rapid growth, including in tropical agricultural commodities such as cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soybeans, and tea. Given the role of sustainability standards in influencing land use in hotspots of biodiversity, deforestation, and agricultural intensification, much could be gained from efforts to evaluate and increase the conservation payoff of these schemes. To this end, we devised a systematic approach for monitoring and evaluating the conservation impacts of agricultural sustainability standards and for using the resulting evidence to improve the effectiveness of such standards over time. The approach is oriented around a set of hypotheses and corresponding research questions about how sustainability standards are predicted to deliver conservation benefits. These questions are addressed through data from multiple sources, including basic common information from certification audits; field monitoring of environmental outcomes at a sample of certified sites; and rigorous impact assessment research based on experimental or quasi-experimental methods. Integration of these sources can generate time-series data that are comparable across sites and regions and provide detailed portraits of the effects of sustainability standards. To implement this approach, we propose new collaborations between the conservation research community and the sustainability standards community to develop common indicators and monitoring protocols, foster data sharing and synthesis, and link research and practice more effectively. As the role of sustainability standards in tropical land-use governance continues to evolve, robust evidence on the factors contributing to effectiveness can help to ensure that such standards are designed and implemented to maximize benefits for biodiversity conservation.
authors.affiliation: Rainforest Alliance, Evaluation & Research Program, 233 Broadway, 28th Floor, New York, NY, 10279, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Jeffrey C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Milder
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Arbuthnot
authors.forename: Allen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Blackman
authors.forename: Sharon E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Brooks
authors.forename: Daniele
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Giovannucci
authors.forename: Lee
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gross
authors.forename: Elizabeth T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Komives
authors.forename: Eric F
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Lambin
authors.forename: Audrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Newton
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Phalan
authors.forename: Götz
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schroth
authors.forename: Bambi
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Semroc
authors.forename: Henk
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Van Rikxoort
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zrust
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*
keywords: biodiversidad; biodiversity; certificación; certification; conservación con base en evidencias; evaluación; evaluation; evidence-based conservation; monitoreo; monitoring; normas voluntarias de sostenibilidad; voluntary sustainability standards