Introduction

‘Certification systems’ are relatively new tools that have evolved globally to encourage and reward higher levels of social and environmental responsibility— and accountability— among producers of all sorts. They have been designed primarily to alter the performance of otherwise unreachable transnational corporations in the fields of natural-resourcebased production, such as forestry, agriculture, mining and tourism. This chapter explores the question of whether these systems, which have not generally been designed explicitly as poverty alleviation tools, can, in fact, assist poor people, either individually or in community-based and small-tomedium production units, to build their natural assets as a basis for sustainable livelihoods and poverty alleviation. From the point of view of the purposes of this volume, the question is whether these systems, developed largely in the global North, have become— or could become— important new international tools for alleviating poverty in diverse international contexts.

The two leading certification systems of this time, the Forest Stewardship Council™ and the Fair Trade Certified™ system, are analyzed extensively here from the point of view of their impacts upon the poor and their ability to contribute, directly and indirectly, to the alleviation of poverty through building natural assets. Emerging certification systems in tourism and mining are also examined, but to a lesser extent, because their standards have not yet been codified, although considerable movement toward that end has occurred in both cases.