Politics of private regulation:ISEALand the shaping of transnational sustainability governance

Abstract

AbstractScholars describe the proliferation of sustainability standards by multi‐stakeholder initiatives as part of an organizational field for sustainability. The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of the institutionalization process of this global organizational field by focusing on the case of theISEAL Alliance (the global association for sustainability standards). We show howISEALputs specific strategies into place to both reinforce and expand the role and influence of sustainability standards. This institutional entrepreneurship consists primarily of two dimensions: institutionalizing macro‐standards based on a market‐driven and procedural vision of sustainability; and simultaneously legitimating both the tools andISEALthrough internal and external enrolments and entanglements. The characterization ofISEAL's activities in this way brings politics back into the analysis of sustainability standard‐related technical debates and extends our understanding of how the micro‐dynamics within organizational fields are interdependent upon macro‐dynamics outside organizational fields.