TY - JOUR

T1 - Contextualizing certification and auditing

T2 - Soy certification and access of local communities to land and water in Brazil

AU - Schilling-Vacaflor, Almut

AU - Lenschow, Andrea

AU - Challies, Edward

AU - Cotta, Benedetta

AU - Newig, Jens

N1 - This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under grant no. LE 2396/4-1 through the project “GOVERNECT - Governance of Environmental Sustainability in Telecoupled Systems of Global Inter-Regional Connectedness” (see https://sustainability-governance.net/governect ).

PY - 2021/4/1

Y1 - 2021/4/1

N2 - The massive expansion of soy production in Brazil has contributed to a loss of access for local communities to land and water, particularly in highly dynamic frontier regions in the Cerrado. Soy certification standards like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) contain principles that are supposed to prevent such problems. In this paper, we examine the extent to which certification and auditing have served to protect local communities’ access to land and water in western Bahía state in the Cerrado’s Matopiba region. We draw on findings from field research in Brazil and western Bahía, 72 semi-structured interviews with corporate, state and civil society actors, and a systematic analysis of audit reports from RTRS-certified farms in Bahía.We find that auditing practices are not effective in protecting the rights and access of local communities to land and water due to three inter-related sets of factors: 1) the business-dominated nature of the drafting and content of the RTRS standard, 2) the structural limitations and everyday practices of auditing, and 3) domestic and local contextual factors in Brazil and western Bahía.This study aims to contribute to a re-thinking and re-assessment of certification and auditing practices and suggests that new approaches are required to govern global commodity chains in a more environmentally just way. We advocate for a locally embedded and community-sensitive perspective in research on certification and auditing, to complement previous research in the fields of critical political economy and sustainability governance.

AB - The massive expansion of soy production in Brazil has contributed to a loss of access for local communities to land and water, particularly in highly dynamic frontier regions in the Cerrado. Soy certification standards like the Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) contain principles that are supposed to prevent such problems. In this paper, we examine the extent to which certification and auditing have served to protect local communities’ access to land and water in western Bahía state in the Cerrado’s Matopiba region. We draw on findings from field research in Brazil and western Bahía, 72 semi-structured interviews with corporate, state and civil society actors, and a systematic analysis of audit reports from RTRS-certified farms in Bahía.We find that auditing practices are not effective in protecting the rights and access of local communities to land and water due to three inter-related sets of factors: 1) the business-dominated nature of the drafting and content of the RTRS standard, 2) the structural limitations and everyday practices of auditing, and 3) domestic and local contextual factors in Brazil and western Bahía.This study aims to contribute to a re-thinking and re-assessment of certification and auditing practices and suggests that new approaches are required to govern global commodity chains in a more environmentally just way. We advocate for a locally embedded and community-sensitive perspective in research on certification and auditing, to complement previous research in the fields of critical political economy and sustainability governance.

KW - Sustainability Governance

KW - environmental governance

KW - RTRS

KW - Commodity chain

KW - Access rights

KW - Latin America

KW - Brazil

KW - Access rights

KW - Brazil

KW - Commodity chain

KW - Environmental governance

KW - Latin America

KW - RTRS

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096579854&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/51d8f399-a4b5-3936-a958-21c95a4a614e/

U2 - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105281

DO - 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105281

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 140

JO - World Development

JF - World Development

SN - 0305-750X

M1 - 105281

ER -