Sustainability certifications are an increasingly common tool used by multinational enterprises (MNEs) and others to cascade norms about sustainability across global value chains (GVCs). They are also highly contested, leading to accusations of neo-colonialism and greenwashing. I consider how MNEs might more effectively cascade norms about sustainability across their GVCs by ensuring certifications integrate the local concerns of their GVC actors with the global concerns of the MNE. I zero in on social sustainability risk—defined as negative impacts on human rights and basic needs—and explore how the indicators in certification texts can be selected to better integrate local and global perspectives. Based on both 28 semi-structured interviews and in-depth analysis of two certification standards, I develop a model guided by convention theory (CT) that reveals how certification standards can help actors reach a compromise on different risk perceptions through language that generates composite arrangements. My model contributes to the debates about how MNEs can cascade norms across GVCs by focusing attention on the importance of written documents like certification standards that serve as potential sites of compromise and alignment between global and local risk concerns.
