To restore credibility and real power to certification schemes, we need to accept the realities about their past and current achievements, says Brendan May

These are tough times for certification and eco-labelling systems. Independent standards programmes find themselves under growing scrutiny. In many ways they are victims of their own success, an achievement that should not be overlooked.

The more certified products hit the market place the more polarised the debate on consumer assurance becomes. Certification has come of age and we are beginning to build up a historical record from which lessons can be learnt.

In January 2012 the Alaskan salmon fishing industry, an early adopter of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) scheme and one of its flagship fisheries, decided to withdraw from the MSC when its next re-assessment is due in October 2012. If this decision holds – it may not – it would mark the end of a decade of partnership with the MSC.

Among the many arguments made by the industry for its withdrawal the most significant is the belief that being MSC certified has lost its premium value as increasing numbers of fisheries pass through the system. Another stated reason is that the cost and complexity of being re-certified could best be spent on other things.

Barely a month after the Alaska decision, the Canadian longline swordfish fishery was deemed certifiable to the MSC standard despite major conservation concerns about turtle and shark by-catch.

These two episodes sum up the paradox facing MSC and other certification schemes: some good candidates see limited value in complying while some poor candidates are deemed eligible for an eco label that implies environmental excellence.

It is timely and right to consider honestly and rigorously what can be done to ensure the continued relevance and credibility of certification as a conservation tool. This means facing up to the fact that in more than 20 years of forestry certification and nearly 15 for fisheries the state of the world’s forests and oceans has become worse, not better.

There are several areas that should form the pillars for future debate.

Certification is a means not an end. It is a valuable management tool, but becomes less valuable when an eco label implying excellence is applied to a commodity whose exploitation is patently not excellent. Certification should not always come with the right to use a label. We should explore how that evolution might work in practice.

The third party accreditation model needs to be debated. Whenever a controversial fishery is MSC certified there is actually nothing the MSC can do about it. The fishery has paid a certifier to assess it against the MSC standard, and at no stage does the MSC have a final direct say in the outcome. It is stuck with allowing its brand to be tarnished when its own standard deems dead sharks and turtles to be acceptable. Very few organisations would allow themselves so little control over their brand image. Either the model is wrong or the standard is too weak.

The relationship between client and certifier must be reviewed. In the very early days of the MSC when I was in charge of communications, the first question people would always ask, sometimes in disbelief, was: “What do you mean the fishery chooses and pays its own auditor?” This perceivedconflict of interest has done more to undermine “independent” certification than anything. It is time to review the practice in which the pupil can choose its examiner.

Certification systems need to adapt to a rapidly evolving sustainability agenda. This means looking at whole product life cycles, broader policy issues such as natural capital and understanding that social fairness is inseparable from environmental responsibility. Certification can no longer afford to be a one-trick pony in a policy agenda focused on whole systems approaches to protecting the planet.

Bureaucracy should never be confused with multistakeholder. Too often the remedy in the face of controversy and division is to pile as many committees and processes as possible into a system in order to demonstrate accountability. The end result is often inertia and paralysis.

There are no easy answers to these dilemmas. And of course there are many success stories from across the world of certification and labelling initiatives. We now have the luxury of assessing the good, the bad and the ugly. It is a situation we should celebrate not bemoan.

But it does mean refreshing our thinking, ditching what is plainly not working, and making the case to businesses and governments that certification is still a force to be reckoned with. Without such a manifesto for change, it won’t be.

Brendan May is founder of the Robertsbridge Group, a former chief executive of the Marine Stewardship Council and a contributing editor to Ethical Corporation.