The expansion of land investments in new global commodities brings to the fore dynamics between the competing crises of food, energy, climate and finance. With global policies and capital driving such expansion, power inequalities between actors whose livelihoods are intimately linked to such agendas are stark. In the face of growing criticism of harmful actions of big industry players, there have been numerous attempts to bring together a diversity of interested actors to participate in formulating standards to govern, regulate or certify future activity so as to ensure its sustainability. This panel considers codes of conduct and certification schemes that have been drawn up through initiatives such as ’roundtables’ in which diverse actors have participated.
Drawing upon specific case studies, the papers interrogate the politics of such processes and of the implementation of standards in practice. They consider the differing goals, agendas and scales that are to be reconciled through such initiatives, interrogating how and whether this has been achieved and who might be the winners and losers.
Chair: Elizabeth Fortin, University of Bristol,UK
- Elizabeth Fortin, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Bristol, Multi-stakeholder initiatives to regulate biofuels: the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels (Presentation)
- Mateo Mier y Teran, Dphil student, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, Strengths and limitations of the Round Table for Responsible Soy – RTRS in Mato Grosso, Brazil (Presentation)
- Laura Silva Castañeda, PhD Student, Laboratoire d’études du développement, Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Certification systems and land conflicts: the case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (Presentation)