The FAO/UNEP joint programme is catalysing partnerships among United Nations agencies, other international agencies, governments, industry and civil society whose activities, together, can promote the necessary transition to sustainability. An Agri-food Task Force (ATF) on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) has been established, comprised of representatives of Member States, United Nations agencies, the private sector and civil society, and clusters of activities are being designed in response to stakeholders’ stated needs. In order to provide the members of the ATF with information for preparing the work of the various activity clusters, the FAO-UNEP Programme organized workshops on various technical issues. As a topic in relation with all the activity clusters, a first workshop on voluntary standards for sustainability (VSS) was organized on 10–11 June 2013 at FAO headquarters, Rome. The aim of the workshop was to examine various types of standards and labels and to build upon lessons learned from concrete examples to identify issues and challenges to be addressed, discuss their potential contribution to improve sustainability of food systems, and propose measures in order to improve their effectiveness. The workshop tried to answer five crucial questions that could facilitate the uptake and scaling-up of VSS: (1) how to make them work for farmers and small food producers; (2) how can VSS be used to enable green trade opportunities, particularly in agri-food products not currently using VSS; (3) how to make them work for consumers globally; (4) how to make it work for the private sector; and (5) what is the role for public actors.