Certification Systems as Tools for Natural Asset Building: Potential, Experiences to Date, and Critical Challenges

Certification systems are becoming important tools to encourage and reward social and environmental responsibility. This paper explores whether these systems, which generally have not been designed for the explicit aim of poverty reduction, can assist poor people, either individually or in community-based and small-to-medium production units, to build their natural assets as a basis for sustainable livelihoods. The paper examines two leading certification systems -- the Forest Stewardship Council(TM); and the Fair Trade Certified(TM); system -- and emerging systems in tourism and mining. The results to date have been mixed. In the forestry sector, poverty reduction benefits of certification have been modest relative to its environmental benefits. In the agricultural commodity trade, where certification systems have been designed with a stronger focus on reducing poverty, the benefits have been greater. The long-term challenge is to ensure that the rapid global uptake and 'mainstreaming' of certification systems does not create new hurdles for low-income individuals and communities

Can Advocacy-Led Certification Systems Transform Global Corporate Practices? Evidence, and Some Theory

There is emerging evidence that globalization is beginning to provide new opportunities for global coalitions of advocacy groups to bring market-based pressures to bear upon major transnational firms in a way that promotes higher standards of social and environmental responsibility in production processes and trade relations. This can be seen as successful citizen-led attention to the “production and process methods” which the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations explicitly chose to omit. More broadly it may reflect the increased importance of global branding, improved awareness in both consumer and financial markets of the social and environmental practices of firms, and collaboration on the part of producers to reduce their risk of brand-damaging attacks on the social and environmental responsibility of their practices. The emergence and growth of the Forest Stewardship Council as the “gold standard” for sustainable forest management, and the expensive attempts by the forest products industry to create industry-driven substitute standards, may be the pivotal example of this phenomenon. The further growth of certified Fair Trade practices under Transfair USA is another example. Both cases provide important lessons as to the elements of present and future success for this movement. They may also represent creative new solutions for problems of persistent poverty by using the leverage of markets in the global North to improve the ability of workers, farmers, and other producers in the global South to build natural assets in ways that generate socially and environmentally sustainable livelihoods.

Certification Systems as Tools for Natural Asset Building: Potential, Experiences to Date, and Critical Challenges

Certification systems are becoming important tools to encourage and reward social and environmental responsibility. This paper explores whether these systems, which generally have not been designed for the explicit aim of poverty reduction, can assist poor people, either individually or in community-based and small-to-medium production units, to build their natural assets as a basis for sustainable livelihoods. The paper examines two leading certification systems – the Forest Stewardship Council™ and the Fair Trade Certified™ system – and emerging systems in tourism and mining. The results to date have been mixed. In the forestry sector, poverty reduction benefits of certification have been modest relative to its environmental benefits. In the agricultural commodity trade, where certification systems have been designed with a stronger focus on reducing poverty, the benefits have been greater. The long-term challenge is to ensure that the rapid global uptake and ‘mainstreaming’ of certification systems does not create new hurdles for low-income individuals and communities.certification, social responsibility, environmental responsibility, povery reduction, natural assets, sustainable livelihoods, Forest Stewardship Council™, Fair Trade Certified™, tourism, mining, forestry, agriculture, globalization

Possibilities and pitfalls? Moderate drinking and alcohol abstinence at home since the COVID-19 lockdown

The global ‘lockdowns’ and social distancing measures triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic have brought about unprecedented social changes, including the sudden, temporary closure of licensed venues and significant modifications to leisure and drinking practices. In this piece, we argue that these changes invite researchers to consider the short and longer-term consequences in terms of continuities and changes to the practices and symbolism of alcohol consumption both within and beyond domestic spaces. We do this by drawing on illustrations from our emergent qualitative research involving internet-mediated semi-structured and focus group interviews with 20 participants from the UK (aged 26-65) concerning experiences of drinking in and beyond ‘lockdown’. In sharing these early findings, we hope to highlight themes relevant to understanding drinking behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic and to stimulate dialogue for immediate research priorities in this area. Key topic areas in our data appear to concern; variability in heavy/moderate/light/non-drinking practices while drinking at home, lockdown as an opportunity to reassess relationships with alcohol, and the symbolic role of alcohol in internet-mediated communications and interactions. Longstanding policymaker and practitioner concerns with managing public drinking and public order may have been unsettled by a growth in home-based drinking, although, as we argue, such changes were in motion before the global pandemic. We propose that a greater understanding of the challenges and opportunities the pandemic presents for (re)negotiating relationships with alcohol may offer wider lessons around how individuals and communities might be supported via innovative policy measures to change their relationships with alcohol both during and beyond lockdown

All in this together?

Almost daily news reports point to how lockdown, ‘the new normal’ for most, is influencing behaviours relevant to physical health like alcohol consumption and taking physical activity. But how is health behaviour changing, among whom, and will any changes last post-lockdown? We argue that health polarisations are tied with broader social inequalities with implications for whether any lifestyle changes will endure. Psychological and social science research must respond with creative, collaborative and innovative research to guide health policy and practice in the post-lockdown world serving the interests of all citizens

Unit organization of three topics in the social sciences

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1946. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Nicaragua: The Economic Dilemmas of Peace and Democracy in 1988

This paper explores the complex economic conditions that Nicaragua faces at the end of 1988. It focuses, in particular, on the policy dilemmas that the Nicaraguan government confronts as domes tic economic conditions continue to deteriorate, as the prospects of continued war drag on, and as public opinion begins to associate economic problems more closely with the government and less closely with the war. The paper presents a summary of overall Nicaraguan economic performance since 1979, places it in the context of the broader Latin American economic crisis over the same period, and analyzes some of the principal characteristics of the economic model that has evolved under the Sandinista Front. Special attention is paid to the dramatic economic policy changes implemented in February and June 1988 and to the changing external assistance levels received by Nicaragua, especially the rapid increase and then decline in Soviet economic assistance. Two alternative scenarios for future economic policy are then explored, one under the assumption of continued war and economic isolation, the other under an assumption of a definitive cease fire in the war and economic reactivation with international assistance.Latin American Studie