Localizing Private Social Standards: Standard Initiatives in Kenyan Cut Flowers

Abstract

As a response to the emergence of Northern-based social standards in the cut flower export industry, a range of Southern social standard initiatives have emerged. In this chapter, I analyse two Kenyan standard initiatives in the cut flower sector — a business initiative and a multi-stakeholder initiative. I investigate how international social standard requirements are ‘localized’ and the results of this localization for different stakeholders. The analysis shows that when the standards are negotiated and applied, the power relations that exist both between local stakeholders and along the global value chain (GVC) for cut flowers are reproduced. Placing local standard initiatives in the context of GVC governance, this chapter also illustrates how they can be seen as indirectly playing into the governance agenda of retail buyers, because local standards (particularly multi-stakeholder standards) offer better insurance against conflict and create necessary consensus and ‘back-up’ from critical voices, both locally and in buyer markets.