The period of public consultation for Version 1 was 60 days (in accordance with ISEAL) and the deadline for receipt of comments was 30th April 2009. The BSI would like to thank all individuals, NGO’s, producers, farmers, small scale growers and companies who took the time to comment.  The comments received and initial observations and responses from the leaders of the Technical Working Groups can be found in the Public Comment section of this website.

As many stakeholders as possible were encouraged to comment on the Standard and the BSI embarked on a series of global Stakeholder Outreach Meetings, engaging in face-to-face, field and factory meetings with producers and small-scale growers in:  Australia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, East Africa, South Africa, India, the European Union and Switzerland see section 7 of this site.  Over the same period, the same auditor conducted pilot studies using the Standard in Australia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, South Africa and India. The results of these audits give a representative view of typical mill and field indicator values.  These values have been factored into Version 2.

The process that was adopted to develop Version 2 was as follows: TWG leaders reviewed the feedback they had received to Version 1 from three sources – public comments made via the website, input from the Stakeholder Outreach Meetings, and the results from the pilot studies.

At the BSI’s Annual General Meeting 4-5 November the Supervisory Board, Management Committee and TWG leaders discussed the proposed changes and approved both the content and the process that was followed.  The result is Version 2.