The awareness session brought together UNIDO with members of the IDOS MGG Network who are working on voluntary sustainability standards. The network consists of researchers and professionals from Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa, whose cooperation has led to the establishment of national platforms in Brazil, China, India and Mexico as well as VSS contact groups in Indonesia and South Africa. The session aimed at providing UNIDO with information about the past, present and future activities of the network with the intention of finding common grounds for potential collaboration.
The Managing Global Governance (MGG) project on Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) has played a catalyzing role in inter- and transnational cooperation, with a strong focus on joint knowledge creation and policy dialogue. The project started in 2015 as research collaboration of the MGG Alumni. The scope of the project expanded and within a span of more than a year, China, Brazil, India and Mexico established multi-stakeholder platforms for sustainability standards in order to foster a better understanding and adoption of VSS in local contexts. The network is also successful in bringing together researchers, government officials and stakeholders from the private sector to explore the potentials of VSS in general and of establishing national platforms as well as to mobilize local support for VSS.

The MGG programme is implemented by the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) in Bonn and funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

IDOS will take part in the upcoming 2022 Forum on Globalization and Industrialization “Sustainable supply chains in times of multiple crises” hosted in Vienna, UNIDO HQ on 6 December 2022.

Welcome and Introduction of IDOS and MGG

• Ariel Hernandez, Senior researcher at IDOS

Introduction of the works of the MGG VSS working strand

Establishment of national platforms on VSS

• Dolores Brito, Brazilian NP on VSS/INMETRO

Exchanges between platforms

• Manish Pande, Indian NP on PSS, Quality Council of India
• Rogerio Correa, Brazilian NP on VSS/INMETRO

Publications and other outputs

• Archna Negi, Jawahrlal Nehru University, India

Future works, projects in the pipeline

Publication in the pipeline

• Jorge Pérez Pineda, University of Anáhuac, Mexico

The establishment of the Indonesian NP

• Aderina Uli Panggabean, National Standardization Agency of (BSN)

Discussion

Moderator

• Ariel Hernandez