Third party certification: implementation challenges in private-social partnerships

Third party certification organizations provide opportunities for market and community/non-state actors to collaborate with minimal state involvement. This new hybrid form of collaborative governance raises questions about accountability and responsibilities of private-social partnerships and the challenges to policy implementation. Emerging market based approaches are driven by shareholder expectations as well as commitment to corporate social responsibility, whereas community engagement is increasingly centered on the questions of social license to operate. This paper argues that a community’s lack of trust of industry and/or certification organizations and assessments hinders the collaborative process. It is found that community groups can grant or withhold social license to operate, ceasing industry progress despite its commitments to corporate social responsibility policies and certified standards.