Rainforest Alliance certification involves a holistic approach — treating environment, ethics and economics equally. To meet the standards, farmers must commit to continuous improvements in worker welfare, farm management and environmental protection. Farmers learn how to improve their productivity and reduce costs by reducing pesticide use, eliminating waste and introducing better farming techniques.
Workers earn decent wages and have access to good housing, education and healthcare. And the environment on which these farmers depend is protected. Scroll for more. We are building an alliance to create a better future for people and nature by making responsible business the new normal.
By joining forces with more than two million Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM farmers—in more than 70 countries around the world—we are working to transform our relationship to the land to make that relationship work better for all of us. In addition to certification, we offer training to farmers in more sustainable practices that boost climate resilience, conserve biodiversity, and promote worker wellbeing—while also helping to increase productivity and improve rural livelihoods.
Thanks to market recognition and consumer reach, it has the potential to generate impact on a massive scale. But the sectors and landscapes we work in have changed dramatically since the Rainforest Alliance first began pioneering certification 30 years ago.
And the merger of the Rainforest Alliance and UTZ in was a natural moment for us to take a step back and consider how certification can—and must— evolve. Our Certification Program1 represents an important step forward in this journey. As part of this degree approach, certification can be a powerful tool for advancing sustainability.
Our new certification program, published in June , guides farmers along a path of continuous improvement. When developing our new standards, it was important to reflect on the impacts of our previous certification programs. This report looks back on lessons learned from the previous Rainforest Alliance and UTZ programs by reviewing the independent research on the impacts of certification for each of our four primary crops: cocoa, coffee, tea, and bananas.
These literature reviews include a wide range of evidence depicting the main strengths and weaknesses of the Rainforest Alliance and UTZ certification programs in these sectors. Many of the topics addressed here have been systematically reviewed elsewhere, including previous Rainforest Alliance Impacts Reports,2 UTZ Impacts Reports,3 and the online platform Evidensia.
The Rainforest Alliance also engages with businesses to create demand for more sustainably produced commodities, improve accountability and transparency in global supply chains, and enable companies and, in turn, consumers to make more responsible purchasing decisions. We also work to secure stronger government commitments by advocating for far-reaching policies that support sustainable production and trade.
In combination with our landscapes and communities work, these approaches can expand and deepen our impact on some of the most pressing social and environmental challenges of our time. Our own observations on the successes we have had and the challenges we still face are enhanced by an ever-growing body of scientific research rigorously assessing the impacts of certification. The Rainforest Alliance certification program has sustainability benchmarks that all farmers must meet. Both the Rainforest Alliance Standard and the UTZ Standard motivated farmers to exceed those benchmarks by including time-bound progress requirements for priority issues.
However, we now recognize that we can do more to support producers in continuous improvement. Therefore, our Sustainable Agriculture goes even further by empowering farmers to choose from an array of additional improvement requirements, each exceeding the mandatory requirements. What does this mean in practice? On the issue of decent wages, for example, it means that farmers must first ensure that workers are paid the legal minimum wage—a mandatory requirement in the standard —but farmers, depending on the size of the farm, must then make clear progress toward paying a living wage the amount of money a household needs to cover basic expenses, like food and housing, and put aside a little for emergencies.
Similarly, farmers are required to prevent deforestation—and then enhance on-farm natural ecosystems and, in some cases, expand them.
Farmers must meet the mandatory requirements, but they can also choose certain improvement requirements that they consider most urgent or beneficial for their farm.
Farmers, businesses, and consumers are hungry for data—and our new certification system can provide it. IndeRainforest Alliance. The Rainforest Alliance Certification Program will address these needs by providing context-specific data on an array of key farm performance indicators—generating continuous insight into agronomy, impacts, and local risks.
Under our new certification program, auditors can use custom risk maps and accurate spatial data to help determine if issue-specific risks, such as child labor and deforestation, are present before they even step foot on a farm. If risks are present, auditors will carry out an enhanced audit and will also. Farm location data and maps such as this one are used to assess the risks of deforestation and farm encroachment into protected areas.
We believe that this change, combined with increased audit oversight and advanced auditor training, will make our assurance processes far more effective, and will allow stronger, more rigorous evaluations.
But what do farmers get in return? The Standards require a mandatory sustainability differential premium for producers. And in some coffee growing regions, climate change poses daunting additional challenges, with yields suffering due to unpredictable rainfall and increased outbreaks of diseases, such as coffee rust.
On the farm level, conventional coffee growing practices can impact biodiversity and water quality. For example, although the coffee plant naturally evolved to grow under the shaded canopy of taller trees, many farms grow full-sun varieties in an effort to boost yields.
And this, in turn, has led to less on-farm tree cover. The Rainforest Alliance seeks to address these issues through a range of complementary strategies: promoting best management practices for more profitable, diverse farming systems; helping farmers develop resilient and productive agroforestry systems to conserve biodiversity; and supporting stronger cooperatives and other forms of producer groups.
In order to broaden our impact beyond the farm level, the Certification Program further emphasizes more responsible business practices throughout the entire coffee supply chain: from better accountability and tracking of certified products to mandatory sustainability differentials premiums. In terms of conservation impacts, research shows that Rainforest Alliance and UTZ Certified coffee farms generally perform better than non-certified farms, especially with regard to forest cover27 and the protection of riparian areas the land bordering waterways such as rivers and streams.
Several studies also show that the positive environmental impacts of certification extend beyond the farms themselves. We have gained valuable insights into our programs and a greater understanding of their environmental and socioeconomic impacts—from biodiversity conservation and coffee yields to market prices and farmer incomes.
Several studies indicate that Rainforest Alliance and UTZ Certified coffee farmers often earn higher revenues19 and coffee incomes20 than non-certified farms. In many cases, the economic bottom lines of certified farms are stronger because they have higher yields21 and receive higher market prices. Due in part to low coffee prices and fluctuating yields,24 smallholders still struggle to earn a living income25 while workers often are not paid a living For example, in countries such as Ethiopia, Colombia, and Costa Rica, certification is not only associated with higher forest quality in areas surrounding certified coffee farms34 but also greater habitat connectivity35 and better water quality protection.
The impacts of Rainforest Alliance certification for coffee smallholders in Honduras A study of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee in Latin America highlights many positive impacts of certification for smallholder coffee farmers.
The researchers found that Rainforest Alliance Certified farms performed better than non-certified farms on multiple indicators related to worker safety and wellbeing: preventing the hiring of minors, paying higher wages, providing personal protective equipment and first-aid kits, storing agrochemicals safely, and treating wastewater.
Certified farms and non-certified farms were found. This finding underlines the market value of certified products and the importance of price premiums to help support key sustainability outcomes.
But sadly, the cocoa sector is contending with severe and entrenched social and environmental challenges, from deforestation and poverty to child labor. And through our new Chain of Custody Standard, we are working to improve economic transparency throughout the supply chain to help cocoa farmers earn a living income and, in turn, pay their workers a living wage.
As part of our commitment to drive deep-rooted change in the cocoa sector, we are continually working to strengthen and improve the Rainforest Alliance certification program.
Recently, we identified serious non-compliances with our requirements on certified farms in West Africa with regard to traceability, deforestation, and the destruction of protected areas. In response, a number of farm groups were decertified for non-compliances. In addition, we launched our Cocoa Assurance Plan in April , which sets forth a stricter approach to cocoa certification in West Africa. The goal of this controlled growth, along with new, stricter mapping requirements, is to provide the highest level of assurance regarding the conditions under which certified cocoa is produced.
Our Standards will take this focus on improved assurance even further. Expanded mapping requirements, investment in technology, and a stronger risk-based approach will allow us to monitor and halt expansion of certified cocoa farms into forested land.
And by requiring the payment of a sustainability differential and promot-. For more information, click on the useful link below. The labelling by an independent certification body like Ecocert enables to validate the compliance of your activities according to Rainforest Alliance standard.
To use the Rainforest Alliance label, businesses are required to seek online approval prior to printing or launching materials that use any of the following Rainforest Alliance marks:. Rainforest Alliance applies to tree crops such as coffee and cocoa tea, fruits such as bananas, coconuts and pineapples , nuts such as hazelnuts , herbs and spices, and cut flowers.
Vegetables and palm: subject to confirmation. With nearly 30 years of experience for audit and certification of organic products in France and in more than countries, Ecocert is the world's leading specialist in the certification of sustainable practices. Our services.
Earn certification and demonstrate that your certified products support responsible farming. Marketing Sustainability. Promote your sustainability efforts with free marketing resources developed by the Rainforest Alliance.
Find certificates. Check whether an operation is certified and eligible to supply and label certified products. Rainforest Alliance Marketplace.
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