VSS Academic Advisory Council Virtual Inception Meeting

25 June 2020
12:00 - 14:00 hrs. Virtual
Geneva
, Switzerland

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Reflecting to the UNFSS research element cornerstone, the Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) Academic Advisory Council (AAC) (hereinafter “AAC”), composed of renowned academic experts from across the globe, has been established to function as a think-tank that brings together a wide variety of academic backgrounds, ranging from public international law, global governance, international political economy, economics and public management, to human rights and sustainability studies. This type of multidisciplinary approach not only reflects the implicit acknowledgement of the complexity and multi-faceted nature of analysing VSS effectiveness and the challenges associated therewith, it also offers researchers from different thematic and methodological schools a chance to collaborate with, and learn from one another. Such collaboration in turn, allows the academics involved to create a more comprehensive understanding, a fuller picture of their research topics around the governance of VSS systems.

UNFSS, as an initiative of five United Nations agencies – FAO, UNIDO, ITC, UN Environment and UNCTAD, embodies a neutral and impartial platform for its constituencies to gain substantial and adequate knowledge. The AAC is thus, a new addition to the UNFSS´s key milestone with a clear interest to appropriately circulate academic and evidence-based studies aligned to the mandate of UNFSS.
The AAC is designed to pursue the following scientific objectiveunderstand the effectiveness of VSS and the determinants of effectiveness. Currently, different disciplines approach questions related to the effectiveness of VSS from different theoretical perspectives and focus on different dimensions of effectiveness. The AAC’s objective is to bring these different perspectives into one overarching network on the effectiveness of VSS, thus contributing to a comprehensive understanding of VSS effectiveness. 
To learn more about the AAC, please visit https://unfss.org/academic-advisory-council/

 

The Inception Meeting (By Invitation Only)

The inception meeting will serve as a collective input among the selected academic experts to the 4th UNFSS Flagship Report, which will be published in fall this year. This Flagship report will be mutually reinforcing and will ensure the results of the research are accessible to a broad base of stakeholders by translating the academic research into policy documents with concrete suggestions and best practices.
A careful selection of renowned academic experts will be participating in this AAC inception meeting and will be discussing the issues around three key themes:
  1. Developments in the field of VSS: Stagnation or Consolidation, Compliance or Learning – This session discusses the developments of VSS on two levels. First on the level of all VSS with a focus on the reasons and possible implications of the stagnation on the number of VSS in recent years. Second, on the development in governance practices of specific VSS by emphasizing the current developments in VSS governance models that interact more closely with standard-takers and what can be expected of them. 
  2. Impact and effectiveness of VSS in achieving the triple bottom line of sustainability – social, economy and environment  – The effectiveness of VSS is determined by the impact they generate on key sustainability metrics and their degree of adoption. This session discusses the conditions under which VSS generate the most significant impacts. It also converses the current adoption dynamics of VSS and how these different types of dynamics are communicated.  
  3. VSS in Public Policy Possibilities and Constraints – VSS are increasingly integrated in different types of public policy including measures for export promotion, import restrictions, public procurement, etc. This session discusses the possibilities and constraints of integrating VSS in public policy based on current studies and insights. The panel aims to answer the following questions: What functions do VSS perform in the regulatory process (agenda-setting, implementation, monitoring and enforcement)? How do or can they complement, substitute or possibly antagonize public policies? And what are the strengths and weakness, threats and opportunities?  
In addition to this meeting, a report will be published in the AAC website to highlight the results derived from the discussions, which will function as a state of play on the field of VSS. This report will gather the most important pioneering research presented at the meeting and will thereby be an important resource for researches, practitioners and policymakers on the most innovative and forward-looking research on VSS and its effectiveness.

(DITC/TAB/VSS) -  11 Feb 2020
 
Co-organizer(s):
The Leuven Centre for Global Governance

Language(s)
English  |    
Related Site:

​The United Nations Forum on Sustinability Standards (UNFSS) www.unfss.org

 

 

Contact

Santiago Fernandez de Cordoba
 
Ruby Lambert