Is certification the solution? Can it deliver urgently needed improvements to complex problems like deforestation and the exploitation of people?

In this controversial new book, Scott Poynton, founder of The Forest Trust, makes a compelling case for a new approach to social and environmental problems that goes beyond certification. Certification emerged from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit amid great hope. Since then, despite a proliferation of certification schemes in twenty-five industry sectors, the destructive and irresponsible exploitation of natural and human resources has grown...