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As the Rainforest Alliance Turns 20, Its Impact on Global Markets Accelerates, and Sustainable Certification Comes of Age
April 20, 2007
Innovative Nonprofit Announces Billion-Dollar Sales Landmarks, Plans for Expansion and New Certification Program The Rainforest Alliance, a leader in the sustainable certification of agriculture, forestry and tourism operations worldwide, marked its 20th anniversary this week, announcing that sales of Rainforest Alliance Certified sustainable coffee, bananas and chocolate surpassed $1 billion in 2006, and projected that it would leverage more than $2 billion in sales of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified wood in 2007. The New York-based international nonprofit organization cited sustained, rapid growth of its coffee, forestry and other current certification programs, and announced it would create new certification programs in strategic sectors, such as livestock and biofuel crops. Founded in 1987 when the world was first coming to grips with fact that 50 acres of rainforest were disappearing every minute, the Rainforest Alliance started as the passion of "a masseuse, a toxicologist, a theater worker, a returned Peace Corps volunteer and a young China expert," according to board chair and founder Dan Katz. "Collectively we had no money, no contacts, no experience and no skills at building a business."
Twenty years later, the Rainforest Alliance is working with thousands of producers, from small cooperatives to Fortune 500 companies including Kraft (coffee), Chiquita (bananas), Expedia (sustainable tourism), Goldman Sachs (green building and sourcing) and many other household names. It creates billion-dollar impacts on global markets, moving them toward sustainable practices. The Rainforest Alliance has currently certified some 10,000 farms in 14 countries on 600,000 acres (240,000 hectares) of land, benefiting more than a million farm workers and their families, as well as certifying more than 100 million acres (40 million hectares) of forestland. "Our work in the last twenty years has not only helped conserve vast areas of forestland and other natural resources worldwide," said Tensie Whelan, executive director of the Rainforest Alliance. "It also helped catalyze cooperation between environmentalists and big business, which were formerly more likely to be adversaries. We've encouraged the emergence of a greener corporate culture, which in turn is helping tip global markets towards sustainable practices. The consequences of this shift are accelerating today." "Today, large companies can't stop talking about their green initiatives, and groups like the Rainforest Alliance deserve a slice of the credit," Fortune Magazine's Matt Boyle wrote prefacing his interview with Tensie Whelan this week. Distinct from CSR initiatives in which companies develop and implement their own internal green or ethical sourcing practices, the Rainforest Alliance is an external, third-party, voluntary certification regime. It works with nonprofit partner groups to create rigorous, independent standards for environmental and social sustainability, including habitat and ecosystem conservation, reforestation, integrated pest management, worker protection, access to medical care, education, community investment and much else. Producers that meet the standards obtain Rainforest Alliance certification, and market their products as such. The model has proven itself in the marketplace and experienced sustained, phenomenal growth in recent years.
For example, Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee purchases have doubled each year since 2003 (from seven million to 54.7 million pounds in 2006). The Rainforest Alliance projects certified beans will account for 5 percent of the world coffee supply in five years, and as much as 10 percent of the world market in seven years. Rainforest Alliance Certified bananas are currently 15 percent of the global market, including those grown on all Chiquita-owned farms in Latin America as well as some of the company's supplier farms. The Rainforest Alliance projects its share of the global banana market will grow to 20 percent in the next five years. In January 2007, forestlands certified by the Rainforest Alliance as meeting FSC standards surpassed 100 million acres, about half of the global FSC total, and a nearly 50 percent increase over the previous year. Total FSC/Rainforest Alliance Certified acreage has already grown by 10 percent in the first quarter of 2007 to over 110 million acres and is projected to double again by 2012. The global market for FSC-certified wood and wood products is more than $5 billion and growing rapidly. The pace of major new deals is also accelerating. So far this year alone the list of new Rainforest Alliance partners includes McDonald's UK (the first major United Kingdom retailer to source 100 percent Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee, 1.8 million pounds in 2007), Holiday Inn hotels in the United States (1,000 hotels, 55,000 cups of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee daily), Whole Foods (carrying Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee, bananas and chocolate at Whole Foods Market stores throughout the United States and Canada), Mars, Inc. (collaborating on establishing best sustainability practices for West African cocoa growers), and Scholastic Books (printing the record 12 million copy United States print run of the last "Harry Potter" sequel on some 22 million pounds of Forest Stewardship Council certified paper -- the largest single FSC paper purchase in history), and even Spain's premier art museum the Prado (building its new extension with 70 percent FSC-certified wood). By 2012, the Rainforest Alliance aims to recruit 50 Fortune 500 companies to source FSC-certified paper and 20 major furniture makers to source FSC-certified wood. 
Beyond its current certification programs in the agriculture, forestry and tourism sectors, the Rainforest Alliance also announced this week it will create new certification programs for sustainable cattle ranching and the sustainable production of soy, palm oil, sugar and other biofuel crops. It will also develop a new Climate Change Initiative to certify carbon offsetting projects and protect vast tracts of forest that will absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. "These new areas for us are not chosen at random," Whelan said. "They are the strategic lynchpins which are most likely to head off the worst impacts looming before us, and to leverage the farthest-reaching opportunities we have in this century to protect the environment and the billions of people whose livelihoods are based on natural resources." Of the roughly 50 percent of the Earth's land mass occupied by forestry, agriculture and livestock, overgrazing has degraded 1.6 billion acres (680 million hectares) worldwide, deforestation has degraded some 1.4 billion acres (580 million hectares) and agricultural mismanagement has degraded 1.3 billion acres (550 million hectares). Agriculture is the human activity that affects the largest proportion of the Earth's surface and is the single biggest user of fresh water worldwide. It is also the principle agent of ecosystem destruction and species extinction. A new study by scientists at the University of California concluded that agriculture will have an impact on the global environment "at least as great as global warming." In the 1990s alone, the planet lost 232 million acres (94 million hectares) of forest worldwide -- 2.4 percent of the total. Almost 70 percent of the deforestation was due to agricultural conversion. Palm oil and sugar cane are growing exponentially, along with resulting deforestation, in response to biofuel demand. The rush toward biofuels will cause major environmental damage unless best practices are followed. Forests will continue to be destroyed unless there are sufficient incentives provided for carbon offsets and sustainable forest management. The Rainforest Alliance will continue to be at the forefront of global efforts to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior.
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