LEAD PARTNERS
India and Sustainability Standards: International Dialogues and Conference (ISS 2016) held in November 2016 at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, India. The conference, third in a row, substantially attracted Indian and international policy actors, government agencies, standard setters, corporate and other businesses, media , and academia, for dialogues on Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS) and Collaborative Sustainability Initiatives (CSI), contributing to the contemporary discourse on global governance and development. Attended by more than 600 delegates and 30 odd partners, ISS 2016 became the leading event in the calendar of sustainability practitioners worldwide which is evident in the run up of ISS 2017 so far.
The deliberations at earlier conferences – ISS 2014 and 2015 explored and assessed the interest and intent of the industry and its stakeholders for design, development and uptake of VSS and CSI, to navigate through multi-dimensional complexities across industry sectors and a range of sustainability issues for holistic and sustained growth. Building on the success of CRB’s initiatives on VSS and CSIs more generally and on ISS 2014 and ISS 2015 in particular, CRB organised ‘India and Sustainability Standards: International Dialogues and Conference 2016’ (ISS 2016) from 16-18 November 2016. The theme of ISS 2016 was anchored around the UNGPs and the UN Sustainable Development Goals .
The first day of ISS 2016 had set the context for dialogues by deliberating on relevance of UNGPs and SDGs in business and public policy context and the role of VSS and CSIs as tools for adhering to UNGPs and achieving the SDGs. Day two and three of the conference had more than two dozen parallel sessions spread across different industry sectors and themes.
