The Rainforest Alliance is strengthening its pioneering cocoa certification program, which is the world’s largest scale initiative to drive more sustainable cocoa farming. Key priorities of the cocoa strategy are assurance, shared responsibility, supply chain transparency, and profitability and resilience.
With the support of the cocoa industry, the Rainforest Alliance is taking this unprecedented action to facilitate greater accountability and oversight in the cocoa sector. The organization’s goal is to improve the economic, social, and environmental conditions of the cocoa industry – beginning with the millions of smallholder farmers in the first mile of cocoa production.
Phase 3 of our Cocoa Assurance Plan invites new groups from West Africa to become certified, provides an updated policy for farm and supply chain certification, and further addresses farm encroachment in protected areas and deforestation.
This Q&A has been developed to provide guidance to certificate holders and certification bodies with regards to the Measures to Strengthen the Cocoa Sector.
This policy sets out specific implementation requirements for certificate holders at both producer and supply chain actor levels (Certification Criteria) and for reinforcing the assurance process (Assurance Process Rules).
Information about a new approach we will implement in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana beginning in June 2020 to strengthen assurance of our certification system.
SA-P-AF-6
This policy sets out specific implementation requirements for certificate holders at both producer and supply chain actor levels (Certification requirements) and for reinforcing the
This impact evaluation was commissioned to Wageningen University, and analyses the contribution of certification and interventions of companies implementing certification with groups of farmers in
This scientific article analyses the social, economic, and environmental effects of voluntary standards initiatives and corporate initiatives in the cocoa sector in West Africa, largely focusing on
The Rainforest Alliance says climate change and deforestation threaten the supply of key raw ingredients for some of Britain’s favourite foods.
Farmer poverty is an enduring issue in the cocoa sector. Our 2020 Sustainable Agriculture Standard addresses this critical issue from many angles, including the introduction of Origin Matching Mass Balance in cocoa.
