Transnational standard-setters promote sustainability transitions by developing ‘sustainability standards’ that are increasingly adopted across sectors and local contexts.

Sustainability standards resemble a modular governance architecture that helps convert the elusive notion of sustainability into semi-independent, adoptable rules and practices and facilitates coordination among multiple governance actors.

The creation of governance modules (e.g. elimination of pesticides) is driven by a combination of interests of standard-setters, local niche experiments and the global sustainability discourse.

Governance modules are continuously shaped through cycles of niche experimentation, negotiation and legitimation across local contexts, and systemic (re-)integration.

Modular governance promotes flexibility and reflexivity in sustainability transitions by focusing on consensus-seeking and learning at the modular level, while allowing transitions to remain open-ended processes.