The rise of mandatory sustainability due diligence regulations marks a shift in transnational sustainability governance, raising questions about the future role of Voluntary Sustainability Standards (VSS). While VSS have gained prominence in the past three decades as private instruments for sustainability governance in global value chains, the introduction of sustainability due diligence regulations alters the governance landscape in which VSS have emerged, presenting threats, opportunities, and uncertainty for VSS. This paper applies an organizational ecology perspective to conceptualize sustainability due diligence regulations as an exogenous shock that reshapes the competitive environment of VSS. We theorize that these regulations create new survival pressures for VSS, forcing them to adapt. Based on primary and secondary qualitative data, we analyze the adaptation strategies of a dozen of major VSS in the agricultural sector and the determinants thereof. We explore the implications for the population of VSS and for transnational sustainability governance more broadly.
