Voluntary sustainability standards offer potential for sustainable development by improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers while conserving biodiversity. However, their overall implications remain poorly understood, as studies have mostly focused on assessing their effects on single sustainability dimensions. Here, we use an interdisciplinary approach to understand the simultaneous effects of sustainability standards (e.g. Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, Cocoa Life) on socioeconomic and ecological outcomes in Ghana's cocoa sector. Our study is based on a rich dataset comprising household data from 814 smallholder cocoa-producing households from five major cocoa regions and ecological data from 119 cocoa plots. Results from the endogenous switching regression approach suggest that sustainability standards have positive effects on socioeconomic outcomes such as cocoa yield, net cocoa income and returns to land. However, using generalized linear mixed effects models, we do not find any significant associations with ecological outcomes related to vegetation structure and animal diversity. Our results indicate that sustainability standards in Ghana's cocoa sector lead to socioeconomic benefits but not to ecological benefits for the plot environment. Nevertheless, yield increases do not come at the expense of biodiversity. We conclude that sustainability standards have the potential to improve socioeconomic outcomes, without significantly creating trade-offs with ecological outcomes.

中文翻译：

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自愿性可持续性标准是否改善了社会经济和生态结果？来自加纳可可行业的证据


自愿性可持续性标准通过改善小农户的生计同时保护生物多样性，为可持续发展提供了潜力。然而，人们对它们的总体影响仍然知之甚少，因为研究主要集中在评估它们对单个可持续性维度的影响。在这里，我们使用跨学科方法来了解可持续性标准（例如公平贸易、雨林联盟、可可生命）对加纳可可行业的社会经济和生态结果的同步影响。我们的研究基于丰富的数据集，包括来自五个主要可可产区的 814 个小可可生产户的家庭数据和来自 119 个可可地的生态数据。内生转换回归方法的结果表明，可持续性标准对社会经济结果有积极影响，例如可可产量、可可净收入和土地回报。然而，使用广义线性混合效应模型，我们没有发现与植被结构和动物多样性相关的生态结果有任何显着关联。我们的结果表明，加纳可可行业的可持续性标准会带来社会经济效益，但不会给地块环境带来生态效益。然而，产量的增加并不是以牺牲生物多样性为代价的。我们得出的结论是，可持续性标准有可能改善社会经济成果，而不会显著地与生态成果进行权衡。