About the event

2nd International Convention on Sustainable Trade and Standards - ICSTS

In the same vein as the ICSTS that was held in New Delhi last year, the 2nd ICSTS aims to improve VSS dialogues among stakeholders across the Latin American region and collectively build solutions to tackle the issues regarding these standards. The Convention will complement thought leaders to bridge the gap between debates on sustainability standards, supply chains, and international trade to work towards achieving the UN SDGs. The Convention intends to:

• Increase multi-stakeholder dialogue
• Improve the transparency of VSS
• Connect the Latin American region to Sustainable Global Value chains.

The Convention will focus on four selected product groups of special importance to Brazil: (i) leather; (ii) fruits, (iii) nuts, and (iv) vegetable oils such as andiroba, babaçú, carnaúba and copaíba.

The choice of these product groups is grounded in economic, social and environmental criteria. All of them are among the highest twenty exporting sectors in Brazil. In addition, these product groups represent different regions of the country. It is worth noting the social dimension is also present as some of their value chain reaches small producers, which belong to poor rural areas. The environmental dimension regards the preservation of native species and ecosystems.

These product groups will be further detailed and analyzed in the ‘Brazilian History’, a detailed report on these sectors planned to be launched during the Convention.

The Convention has been framed around these four national product groups whose path and good practices project the notion of Sustainable Global Value Chain. For developing countries, some of these sustainability criteria can represent challenges for their exports. Developing countries such as Brazil, which exports depend mainly on the agro business, are highly affected. VSS possibly affects 44% of the total value of Brazilian exports. This means that around US$100 billion of the country´s exports are subject to these certifications. Small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) suffer the impacts of these demands more seriously. Even though they do not usually export themselves, they are very much integrated within the value chain of bigger exporting companies. 

However, not only do international markets become more rigorous towards sustainability standards, consumers are also increasingly aware of their role in this chain, thus making more responsible choices. In this context, the Convention aims to disseminate good practices and help Brazilian companies be better informed about the growing International emphasis on sustainability measures.

VSS are instruments to show that companies are complying with specific sustainability requirements, which can relate to economic, social or/and environmental aspects. They have proliferated over the past years and sometimes, it is difficult for both producers and consumers to choose among them.

These standards are the building blocks of sustainable global value chains; however, they can also be a challenge when its use create technical barriers to trade. It is important that the stakeholders are aware of this in order to manage the pathways to mitigate this negative externality by, for example, negotiating mutual recognition agreements.

One of the Convention goals is to bring together Brazilian partners and stakeholders from around the world to broaden and deepen this discussion, increase collaboration and jointly build solutions to foster Sustainable Global Value Chains.

Brazil has historically played an important role in the international sustainability discussions. In 2018, the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea), a public Brazilian think tank, presented the adaptation of the global goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to the Brazilian reality. This is part of the national effort towards internalizing and implementing the Agenda.

VSS can contribute to this effort enormously if stakeholders manage to make the best use out of them and mitigate the negative externalities associated to their proliferation and trade barriers.

To find out more about ICSTS, download Concept Note here.