For a civilian economy free of violence.
Companies highlight their environmental and social commitments, but a massive blind spot remains: the indirect contribution to armed conflicts.
Today, a company can claim to be "ethical" while providing logistics, IT, or financial services to armies at war. No current standard allows for the verification of this "non-participation."
Peaceful Commerce is the first certification label guaranteeing that a company does not participate in the war economy.
Our goal is to rid civilian commerce of all military influence by making visible, verifiable, and progressively "standard" the commitment of companies not to supply goods or services to armed groups.
Any organization, state or non-state, structured and equipped for the use of lethal force for combat, national defense, territorial conquest, or insurgency.
Considered as Armed Groups (non-exhaustive list): Regular armed forces (army, air force, navy), national guards, militias, paramilitary groups, insurgent or terrorist groups, as well as Private Military Companies (mercenaries).
No sale of goods or services is authorized to these entities, regardless of the product's nature (lethal or non-lethal).
A group whose exclusive purpose is the enforcement of common law and the protection of citizens, without a mandate for territorial defense or external force projection. To be eligible under this label, five cumulative conditions must be met:
In case of doubt, the benefit of the doubt is not granted.
Structured into four levels of requirement.
A "Low Barrier" entry via a sworn self-declaration.
An audit conducted by an independent third party. The goal is to validate the reality of the commitment beyond mere words.
The certified company commits to working only with clients who are themselves certified (or commit to becoming so within 3 months).
Depth Gauge System:
If all your clients are Level 3, you achieve Level 3.1. If all clients of your clients are also Level 3, they become 3.1 and you advance to Level 3.2, and so on.
The obligation to demand unlimited downstream compliance. A product sold by a Level 4 company can never reach armed groups, regardless of the distribution chain's length.
Risk-Based Auditing: To prevent companies from using shell corporations or "pass-through" distributors to bypass Level 3 requirements, we employ a dynamic auditing framework. The specific checks deployed are determined by the auditor based on the company's risk profile, jurisdiction, size, and supply chain complexity.
A parent company, its subsidiaries, and affiliates under common control are treated as a single entity. A company cannot use a subsidiary as a "buffer" to achieve certification. If a controlled subsidiary sells to the military, the entire corporate group is disqualified.
Companies must declare their Ultimate Beneficial Owners. If the UBO of the certified company matches the UBO of the client company, the transaction does not count as a valid "flowdown" step. The audit looks through related companies to the first truly independent buyer.
To qualify as a valid Level 3 client, the purchasing entity must significantly transform the product, integrate it, or consume it internally. If the client acts solely as a paper reseller without altering the product, certification requirements automatically pass through them to the next buyer.
Any company acting as a certified node in a Level 3 supply chain must prove it is a real, operating business. Criteria include having physical offices, actual employees, and a diverse client base. Shell companies with zero employees are rejected.
If a client derives an overwhelming majority of its revenue from selling your products, or sells exclusively to one downstream buyer, they are flagged as a "captive entity." Auditors will treat them as an extension of the certified company rather than an independent client.
Level 3 cannot be achieved via self-declaration alone. A company must first pass a Level 2 Third-Party Audit. The independent auditor is specifically tasked with sampling the client list to identify and report any obvious shell companies before Level 3 is granted.
To prevent goods from entering the military supply chain via "disposal" or "scrap," companies must ensure that discarded, decommissioned, or recycled products are verifiably destroyed, rendered unusable for military applications, or processed by certified recycling partners who adhere to the same flowdown requirements.
To maintain the integrity of "Infinite Flowdown," a Level 4 product can only be sold to companies certified at Level 2 or higher (Level 1 self-declarations are not sufficient). Furthermore, the Level 4 status is strictly contagious: any product, service, or system that integrates, utilizes, or otherwise touches a Level 4 product automatically inherits the Level 4 strict flowdown requirements, overriding any lower certification level of the intermediary.
Current ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) frameworks focus heavily on the environment and labor rights, but completely ignore a company's indirect contribution to armed conflicts. Peaceful Commerce fills this critical gap by providing a verifiable framework for demilitarized supply chains.
Yes. Unlike traditional regulations that merely manage or restrict dual-use items, Peaceful Commerce takes a radical approach: it strictly prohibits the sale of any goods or services (whether lethal or non-lethal, including raw materials, IT, logistics, catering, etc.) to armed groups. The focus is on the end-user, not just the product.
The levels determine how far down your supply chain the restriction applies:
No, the certification applies exclusively to moral persons (legal entities, organizations, and businesses), not to physical persons. For example, if you run a Level 4 certified coffee shop and an employee of an arms manufacturer visits informally as a private individual, you can absolutely serve them coffee. However, if the visit is for business purposes—such as an expensed business meeting or an official B2B catering order—you cannot provide your services to them.
Compliance scales with the certification level. It begins with a sworn self-declaration (Level 1) and progresses to rigorous third-party documentary audits (Level 2) and mandatory supply chain flowdown requirements (Levels 3 and 4) inspired by IT security standards like SOC 2. The "Depth Gauge" in Level 3 further tracks how deeply this commitment penetrates the downstream supply chain.
Stefan ANTUN
Project Lead, Peaceful Commerce
stefan@peacefulcommerce.orgChemin de la Charrue 3
1218 Le Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland