What’s This All About?
The three ‘sister projects’ SUSTCERT4BIOBASED, HARMONITOR and STAR4BBS work together in the implementation of different joint activities, including the Joint Monitoring System. The Joint Monitoring System is a monitoring tool designed to assess the effectiveness and robustness of sustainability certification schemes and business to business labels (CSLs) for biological resources intended for industrial value-based value chains and for biobased materials and products excluding food/feed, biofuels, bioenergy and cultural/recreational sectors.
What is the purpose of the BMS?
The JMS aims to provide the European Commission and certification schemes and labels owners with a framework to evaluate the potential of CSLs (certification schemes and labels) and their accompanying standards to contribute to objectives and sustainability goals prioritized in EU relevant policies and SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). It intends to facilitate the potential harmonization of existing certification schemes and labels of biobased systems in terms of shared sustainability and governance criteria. The JMS will further increase transparency regarding the performance of existing SCLs for biobased systems in the European market, including an evaluation of their effectiveness and robustness. This information could potentially be used to improve CSLs performance.
The purpose of the system could be summarised as follows:
- To give EU policymakers an understanding of how existing SCS and labels contribute to EU sustainability priorities for the bioeconomy, and an assessment of the robustness and effectiveness of existing schemes
- To support and incentivise scheme owners to improve and harmonise their systems by identifying potential gaps and weaknesses in their content and system characteristics
Which is the main output?
The Joint Monitoring System deliverable will be in the form of a report to be prepared jointly with the sister projects STAR4BBS and HARMONITOR which will be produced at the end of the project (May 2025). The JMS is envisaged to be available as a tool in MS Excel which shows the different levels of the monitoring system as well as visualization of the results. The monitoring system will be publicly available and thus accessible to a wide range of stakeholders.
Who will benefit from this?
EU policymakers and certification schemes and labels (CSLs) owners are the primary audience for this monitoring system
How It Works?
The BMS has a set of indicators aimed at collecting information to measure effectiveness and robustness of schemes and labels. It is structured in three levels: System level, Content level and Outcome levels.
- System Level: the characteristics of the SCLs, including its governance, traceability, assurance, etc.
- Content Level: the sustainability requirements of the SCLs, particularly those related to environmental, social, economic, and circularity priorities and targets.
- Outcome Level: evidence of the performance and impact generated by the implementation of SCLs
For each level, the monitoring system will have a standardized set of indicators, housed in a centralized database. Another key component of the BMS will be a layer of interpretation which concern definition of minimum requirements and the evaluation mechanism.
The BMS will be optimized using the feedback from testing on selected certification schemes and labels, pilot audits and stakeholder engagement.
Why are we working together?
The BMS is being developed collaboratively among the sister projects. The goal of the three sister projects working together is to reduce confusion, divergences, and mistrust among stakeholders by creating a harmonised, overarching monitoring system. Working together will allow the projects to build on each other’s knowledge and experience, subjecting the BMS to a higher level of scrutiny, and maximising the effective use of resources. The BMS will streamline stakeholder consultations and reduce fatigue while eliminating competition among the three projects and maximise the synergies and impacts of the results.
The three projects have the responsibility of leading one of the three levels based on the key expertise within the projects. For the development of each of the three pillars, there is representation from all three projects and in this way technical knowledge and expertise can be synergized and built upon.
Testing and Refining
Testing of the BMS will take place in different ways: Testing on selected schemes and labels, Pilot auditing and Stakeholder engagement. The feedback received from these different testing options will be used to further improve and refine the BMS. The testing of the BMS on selected schemes and labels will be done through close communication with the scheme and label owners. From the experience gained from testing on the schemes and labels, further fine tuning of indicators and the evaluation system can be made. The reality check will become implemented through the pilot audit. The consultation with auditors is aimed at ensuring balance of practicality and comprehensiveness of BMS requirements as well as worldwide applicability and across diverse value chain specific conditions. Furthermore, by engagement with range of stakeholders the improvement of applicability and acceptance of BMS is expected.