South–South Trade and Voluntary Sustainability Standards

The report examines how voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) can be integrated into trade policies to foster sustainable South-South trade. It identifies key barriers, such as high compliance costs and lack of demand, and provides case studies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America to demonstrate successful integration strategies, including mutual recognition agreements and participatory guarantee systems.

• South-South trade has experienced rapid growth, with its value increasing from USD 600 billion in 1995 to approximately USD 5.3 trillion in 2021, representing 24.4% of world trade by 2021.
• VSSs can address environmental and social risks associated with resource-intensive production models in the Global South, particularly for problematic crops like soybeans and palm oil which drive deforestation and biodiversity loss in South America and Southeast Asia.
• High compliance costs, including administrative fees and audit expenses, act as a significant barrier to VSS adoption for smallholder farmers, often leading to their exclusion from certified markets.
• A lack of demand for certified products in the Global South limits the scaling of VSSs, as consumers and private sector actors are often unaware of sustainability issues or perceive certified goods as too expensive.
• The 2018 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Chile and Brazil on organic products is the first mutual recognition system in South America and the first globally to recognize Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGSs), leading to a 24% increase in Chilean organic exports to Brazil by 2021.
• The African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) developed Eco Mark Africa (EMA) as a continent-wide recognition system for sustainability standards across agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and tourism to reduce costs for producers and eliminate administrative trade barriers.
• The Pacific Organic Standard (POS), developed in 2008, utilizes PGSs to help farmers in the Pacific Island region access local and regional markets, with over 100,000 hectares of land certified organic as of 2020.
• Namibia and Zambia are integrating GLOBALG.A.P. standards into national policies to professionalize farming and enhance intraregional trade within the Southern Africa Development Community.
• The East African Organic Production Standard (EAOPS), adopted in 2007, provides a uniform set of criteria for organic produce in the East African Community, though its full potential is hindered by a lack of official recognition in some member states' national legislation.
• Bilateral initiatives are often more efficient than regional or multilateral ones in overcoming integration challenges because they can be based on specific local needs and existing trust between two partners.

APA

Bermúdez, S., & Sarmiento, F. (2023). South–South Trade and Voluntary Sustainability Standards. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2023-09/voluntary-sustainability-standards-south-south-trade.pdf

Chicago

Bermúdez, Steffany, and Florencia Sarmiento. South–South Trade and Voluntary Sustainability Standards. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2023. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2023-09/voluntary-sustainability-standards-south-south-trade.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Bermúdez |first1=Steffany |last2=Sarmiento |first2=Florencia |title=South–South Trade and Voluntary Sustainability Standards |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=September 2023 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2023-09/voluntary-sustainability-standards-south-south-trade.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{bermdez2023southsouth, author = {Bermúdez, Steffany and Sarmiento, Florencia}, title = {{South–South Trade and Voluntary Sustainability Standards}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2023}, month = sep, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/2023-09/voluntary-sustainability-standards-south-south-trade.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }