The Rainforest Alliance has lifted the suspensions of two Kenyan tea certificate holders, following the corrective actions implemented by the owners, James Finlay Kenya and ekaterra Tea Kenya.
Earlier this year, the Rainforest Alliance carried out investigative audits on estates owned by the two Kenyan tea certificate holders. The results of the investigative audits confirmed the presence of multiple non-conformities of social and management criteria of the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard for both certificate holders. Based on these results, the Rainforest Alliance took the decision to suspend both certificate holders on May 9, 2023.
Since that time, both ekaterra Tea Kenya and James Finlay Kenya have taken action to close the identified non-conformities. The Rainforest Alliance has maintained close communication with both the certificate holders and their parent companies throughout this process.
Following the results of thorough recent verification audits, the Rainforest Alliance announces that the suspensions of both ekaterra Tea Kenya and James Finlay Kenya have been lifted with immediate effect.
The decision to lift suspensions was communicated to the certificate holders on July 17, 2023. From this time, tea produced and sold by both ekaterra Tea Kenya and James Finlay Kenya can once again be sold as Rainforest Alliance certified.
Continuous Improvement
Our continued partnership with ekaterra Tea Kenya and James Finlay Kenya demonstrates our shared commitment to a continuous improvement approach to preventing and addressing human rights violations.
While the Rainforest Alliance will never tolerate human rights violations of any kind, we have learned throughout our 35 years of experience working in agricultural supply chains that complex issues—particularly those related to human rights abuses—cannot be solved by zero-tolerance approaches alone.
For this reason, through our 2020 Sustainable Agriculture Standard, the Rainforest Alliance has shifted to an “Assess-and-Address” human rights due diligence approach which focuses on working with certificate holders to build transparent, trustworthy systems for monitoring, detecting, and remediating key human rights abuses. Assess-and-address is aligned with growing global legislation, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
We remain committed to doing our part to help stop sexual harassment and gender-based violence in global supply chains. The safety and well-being of women – and of all workers – is an integral part of our certification program and our mission at large.