From the Experts: Unilever Executive Reflects on the Future of Sustainable Business

We asked Paul Polman – chief executive of Unilever, a company that we have collaborated with for many years – to help us kick off 2013 with his thoughts about the Rainforest Alliance, our joint collaboration and the future of sustainable business.

Over the past quarter of a century the Rainforest Alliance has not only pioneered a vision of a more sustainable future, but also developed the practical mechanisms to help deliver it.

By providing farm, tourism and forestry enterprises with the financial incentives to manage their land sustainably, they have protected precious ecosystems, enhanced livelihoods and transformed the way crops are grown.

Most importantly perhaps, through its certification program, the Rainforest Alliance has brought sustainability to the mainstream consumer. Today, the ‘little green frog’ is widely recognized as a mark of ethical, responsible sourcing — providing people with the opportunity to consume differently — and to consciously engage in the creation of a better, more equitable future for all.

The Rainforest Alliance has demonstrated what can be achieved when you work in partnership — when you reconcile the needs of communities with those of habitats and champion solutions that recognize the interdependence of environmental, social and economic stability.

As was noted in their 25th anniversary report “Protecting Our Planet,” today 15 percent of the global banana trade, 9.4 percent of the world’s tea and 3.3 percent of the global coffee trade originate from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms.

These are remarkable achievements for which the organization should be very warmly congratulated.  As the CEO of Unilever — which has worked with the Rainforest Alliance since 2007 — I would also like to personally thank the Rainforest Alliance for the part they have played in our journey to source all of our agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020, an area where we are making excellent progress.

And yet, while we can all be rightly proud of some of the achievements of the past quarter of a century, it is increasingly clear that time is not on our side. We simply do not have another 25 years to secure the Earth’s future.

Despite excellent work from the Rainforest Alliance and others, certified goods remain in the minority. The vast majority of commodities are still produced without any guarantee of their sustainability.

While the Rainforest Alliance’s work to demonstrate the interdependence of people and their environment has provided a glimpse of how humans can live in harmony with the planet, we are still a long way from achieving this vision of sustainable living.

And as populations grow, as people around the world aspire to a better quality of life, as farmland becomes more degraded and the effects of climate change more pronounced, so issues of food security, water scarcity and poverty will come into much sharper focus.

We must now build on our successes.  We must use the tremendous momentum that the sustainable agriculture movement has created to scale up solutions and challenge a status quo where over 850 million people go hungry each day.

We know that the challenges are real and stark — but also that success is possible through our continued and determined efforts.

The current system is broken.  Indeed, to think otherwise would be an injustice.  As the gap between rich and poor is growing ever wider,  millions are left struggling to earn a living and fulfill their everyday health and hygiene needs.

In many areas, girls and women remain marginalized, children are denied an education, human potential is left unrealized by a global system that favors the few.

It seems that this age of humans — the Anthropocene, as it is being called — is in danger of imploding,  of combusting under the weight of our ever-growing

A box of Unilever-owned Lipton tea made with leaves from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in Kenya.

population  and our ever greater demands.   That is why we must ask ourselves what can be done to redress the balance and to restore equilibrium. For solutions we must revisit the systems we have created to sustain ourselves; un-pick, from the tangle of our past, the tools that will take us forward.

As demonstrated by the 2008 financial crisis, the anger of the Arab Spring or the Occupy Wall Street movement, contemporary capitalism has been found wanting.  Morally and ethically defunct, it has created huge extremes of wealth, significant debt for both individuals and governments, the creation of financial instruments which have questionable social value, and the unsustainable use of scarce physical and natural resources.

We must harness the positive elements of capitalism — the energy, enterprise and creativity that has been directly responsible for lifting nearly half a billion people out of poverty, for revolutionizing health and medical care and for the creation of digital technologies which are transforming the lives of people everywhere — and use these to create a new world order that provides for both the needs of growing populations and the health of the planet.

At Unilever, the challenge of doing business more responsibly — of giving to society rather than taking from it — has resulted in the creation of a new business model, the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.

Spanning our entire portfolio of products and all the countries in which we operate, the Sustainable Living Plan sets out detailed actions to grow our brands, reduce costs, support our customers and open up new markets in a sustainable way.

Central to this vision is our commitment to take responsibility for our impact across our whole value chain — from the way we source our raw materials to our production methods and the way consumers use and dispose of our products.  This is why our partnership with the Rainforest Alliance means so much to us.

We hope that by decoupling growth from environmental impact we will enable more people to benefit from the health, nutritional and hygiene benefits of our products without negatively impacting the planet.

We also believe that by expanding our sourcing and distribution networks to engage more smallholder farmers and small-scale distributors, we will be able to support equitable development and build economic resilience in under-served communities.

And yet, despite our efforts to improve yields and incomes through Rainforest Alliance certification we know we still have further to go to ensure that our interventions help to bring sustained change to the way people live their lives, feed their families and secure their futures.

You can read the second part of Paul Polman’s blog on Thursday, when he will discuss the role of women and government in sustainable agriculture, and the importance of setting challenging goals.

The Champagne of Teas

Maya Albanese, sustainable agriculture associate, in a Darjeeling factory.

Back from a trip to India, Rainforest Alliance sustainable agriculture associate Maya Albanese writes…

The mighty snow-capped Himalayas provide an awe-inspiring backdrop to the bright green slopes of Darjeeling, blanketed with rows upon rows of meticulously pruned tea bushes. Here, women in colorful clothes scale the slopes carrying woven baskets overflowing with bountiful autumnal harvests.  Located at the northernmost tip of the state of West Bengal, the Golden Valley of Darjeeling is famous for its high-quality, high-altitude orthodox teas. With just 80 gardens planted in Darjeeling, the harvest is small and special in comparison to other tea growing regions of the world. Production of this “champagne of teas” is high cost and low output, and it commands a premium price on the international market.

Journey to Tumsong

In November of 2012, I had the pleasure of staying on Tumsong Tea Estate, a Rainforest Alliance Certified™ tea garden approximately 5,000 feet above sea level in Darjeeling. Tumsong was planted in 1867 around a temple dedicated to the Hindu goddess Tamsa Devi, who is worshipped by the indigenous people of the Golden Valley.  It is said that when you drink the delicate brew of Tumsong — known as “the garden of happy hearts” — you receive the blessing of the goddess herself.

I arrived in Tumsong by plane from Bagdogra airport followed by three hours on a precarious, winding road. As I traveled closer to the heart of Darjeeling, the lines

The Tumsong Tea Estate.

on the faces of the people around me changed dramatically. The majority of the local population is Gorkha (of ethnic Nepali background), and the tea pluckers are almost exclusively Nepali women. You will often see the word “Gorkhaland” above signs in Darjeeling, representative of the desire of some locals to see the region become an independent state.  There are a number of other indigenous ethnic groups in the area, including Sherpas, Bengalis, Anglo-Indians, Chinese, Biharis and Tibetans.

On a clear day, you can see an exceptional view of Kangchenjunga – the tallest mountain in India and the third highest in the world — from Tumsong. It’s proximity to the Himalayas generates a constant, cool breeze, making the tea buds grow gradually and saturating their leaves with a “muscatel” flavor.  This unique flavor, the result of small insects sucking juices from the stems of tea plants, is one of the reasons Darjeeling tea is so prized.

 Harvest Seasons of Darjeeling

In order to understand tea tasting and production better, one must become attuned to a garden’s “flushes” — harvest periods throughout the year which produce varying qualities of tea. Tea is plucked from the same tea bushes and processed with the same methods during each flush, but seasonal climate variations produce distinct flavors.

The first flush takes place in mid-March, after the spring rains have arrived and the tea bushes are a vibrant green color. A cup of first flush Darjeeling tea is light green in color and has a soft floral aroma with a mildly astringent taste.

Tea pluckers bring the autumnal flush to be weighed at Tumsong.

Just before the monsoon season begins in June, the second flush is harvested. A personal favorite of mine, the second flush tea is a bit darker in color with a stronger flavor and a mild fruit taste.

The final harvest, which had occurred just before my arrival at Tumsong, is called the autumnal flush and offers a rounded cup of scents and flavors. Because this flush occurs during the monsoon, the tea leaves are extra-large and make a brew that is coppery in color with the most full-bodied taste of all the flushes.

Protecting Biodiversity

Darjeeling is located in the Eastern Himalayan zoo-geographic zone, home to endemic rare plants like high elevation orchids and endangered animals such as one-horned rhinoceroses and snow leopards. Deforestation is a serious issue in the area, largely due to increasing demand for wood fuel and timber, and air pollution from traffic congestion in the towns.

The Tumsong Tea Factory.

Fortunately, Chamong Ltd — the company that owns Tumsong Estate – is an environmental champion with a strong commitment to sustainability and a number of certifications for environmental and social stewardship.  All of its gardens are managed with minimal to no pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, and several are Rainforest Alliance Certified.

Earning Rainforest Alliance Certification

In order to become Rainforest Alliance Certified, Tumsong went through a rigorous process to meet the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) Standard, which covers waste and water management, integrated crop and pest management, and workers services and rights. It’s a challenging process in Darjeeling, particularly because erosion, pests and blights regularly affect the steep and variable terrain on which the tea is planted. Through collaborative work with the Rainforest Alliance, tea companies like Chamong are working to address these issues in a manner than is environmentally and economically sustainable.

Kanchenjunga Mountain, the third highest mountain in the world.

Enjoying Impeccable Hospitality

One of the best parts of the experience of staying at Tumsong Tea Estate is the hospitality. I stayed in the main tea house or ‘Chiabari,’ a gorgeous colonial mansion with porches facing the Himalayas, cozy fireplaces and a full-service kitchen. Particularly delightful is the tradition of bringing a tray of “bed tea” to your room each morning at the hour of your preference. The hospitality only added to an already remarkable experience in an exceptional setting.

Tourists who are interested in a first-hand experience of Rainforest Alliance Certified tea production in beautiful Darjeeling can reserve rooms at the Chiabari. Tumsong is a three-hour drive from Bagdogra airport in West Bengal and 18 miles from the town of Darjeeling, where visitors can enjoy a ride on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999 and one of the only steam powered trains still operating in the world. 

Thank You for a Wonderful 2012!

You make our work in sustainable agriculture, forestry, tourism, climate and education possible — and we’re so very grateful for your support. Here’s to an even better 2013!

Reflection on COP18

Following COP 18, Jeff Hayward — director of the Rainforest Alliance’s climate program — reflects on the proceedings and the future of climate negotiations.    

The year’s fiercely hot temperatures, searing droughts and intense hurricanes served as startling reminders of the urgent need to develop immediate, long-term solutions to address global climate change. Yet, world leaders who gathered at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Doha, Qatar, delivered little more than a transitional agreement — packaged as the Doha Climate Gateway — and a decision to work toward a more substantive accord by 2015. Here, we outline some of the main takeaways from this year’s session…

Transition to a New Agreement

As expected, Doha concluded in an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020. At that time, it will be replaced by a new treaty, requiring for the first time that all countries make emissions reduction commitments. The Kyoto Protocol (KP) working group will be terminated and negotiations for the new climate agreement will shift to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Enhanced Action (known as the ADP).  Per agreements made under the Durban Platform, the goal of the new mechanism is to develop “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties.” Debates flared, however, around the meaning of “legal force” and questions around how such a mechanism would be applicable to “all parties.” It is yet to be determined how Kyoto, which only covers about 15 percent of global GHG emissions, will influence the new agreement and how the agreement transition will play out.

Failure to Advance REDD+

For the first time in five years, approaches to address deforestation and forest degradation did not progress. REDD negotiations were carried out through two subsidiary bodies — the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) – and until COP18, both had been making steady and relatively rapid progress.  In Doha, SBSTA hotly debated the requirements for verification systems needed to monitor and report on changes in forest cover and related emissions. The main issue was the amount of finance developed countries would commit compared with the rigor and independence of verification processes that developing countries would accept. Committee members appeared to be earnestly trying to reach a consensus in the last few minutes of the final SBSTA session but were too far apart on redline issues to reach a decision. These topics will be revisited in Bonn in mid-2013.

Like the SBSTA, the LCA did not come to any concrete conclusions regarding REDD financing and, in fact, concluded. REDD financing will likely transition to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which is expected to be responsible for overseeing $100 billion per year by 2020 to support developing countries who undertake adaptation and mitigation actions, including REDD. With very little in the way of financial commitments and little clarity on how these funds will be generated, securing long-term REDD+ financing remains a challenge.

Challenges Ahead

There was a palpable sense among observers at COP18 that REDD is suffering from ‘issue fatigue’ and is not progressing rapidly enough as a pay-for-performance mechanism. If the LCA had reached an agreement on results-based payments for emissions reductions, such a show of support within the UNFCCC would have reinvigorated interest in REDD, particularly by the private sector but also among countries. In recent years, REDD+ has been one of the most intriguing mechanisms to emerge from COP negotiations as a credible approach for conserving forests and biodiversity with real benefits for forest-dependent communities. With stagnant progress at the international framework level, many worry that momentum for REDD is fading.

Concerns are also rising as negotiations transition away from Kyoto and pivot toward a new climate deal under the ADP and GCF. Questions and fears remain about our ability to muster urgency, action and finance during this time of transition and the (likely) laborious process necessary to confirm the details of a new mechanism. In addition, climate watchers fear that this is simply the same old strategy with a new name and anticipate challenges in enhancing engagement from countries like the US. Finally, this new negotiation track must find a way to bring the key GHG emitting countries, including the US and China, on board to bridge the gap needed to reduce sufficient global emissions and put temperature increases back on a track to stabilize at (or below) 2 degrees centigrade.

Progress Outside of the UNFCCC

In the wake of COP18’s questions and concerns about the future of REDD, financing and the new climate mechanism, discussions continued to spotlight progress made on climate change outside of international agreements, particularly the important role that private enterprises play and the benefits and lessons generated by the voluntary carbon market.

Many companies in the private sector have begun addressing carbon emissions within their own supply chains, regardless of legally binding agreements, and much of the discussion at COP’s side events focused on how the private sector can address commodity drivers by promoting sustainable agriculture. For example, Unilever made a commitment to source all of its tea from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms by 2020 – these farms  boast many climate-smart practices, including the prohibition of deforestation, maintenance of healthy soils, protection of native ecosystems and decreased use of energy, water and agrochemicals. As a leader in addressing sustainability within its supply chain, Unilever has sparked change across the world’s tea producing regions with a tenacity that government action, or lack thereof, has yet to achieve.

In the absence of international agreements on REDD and climate change, the voluntary carbon market and credible carbon standards are also fostering change by leveraging market forces for conservation, sustainability and climate change mitigation. Standards organizations, such as the Verified Carbon Standard, have been leading the way in developing the protocols necessary for aligning approaches towards REDD from local to national scales. New guidance for jurisdictional and nested REDD, lays out how to incorporate project-scale REDD initiatives into national and regional accounting and crediting programs.

These trends point to the growing importance that non-policy mechanisms play in promoting climate change commitments. Given the incremental, procedural pace that characterized this year’s COP, we expect progress to continue with bilateral agreements and carbon markets, voluntary markets, private enterprises and other efforts, such as innovation in climate-smart agriculture carried out on the landscape and farm levels, to shape actions that to reduce GHGs and shift global business and consumer actions on climate change.

For more information about COP18, explore these resources from CIFOR,IISD, UNFCCC, World Resource Institute and Unilever.

A Reflection on My Journey with the Rainforest Alliance

Winnie Mwaniki, a longtime Rainforest Alliance consultant based in Africa, reflects on her work with tea farmers in Kenya.

My journey with the Rainforest Alliance’s sustainable agriculture program began in 2006 when I joined a small team in Kenya to kick start a three-year pilot project with Unilever (makers of Lipton Tea) and the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA). Designed to demonstrate the value of sustainable agriculture to smallholders through Farmer Field Schools — a learner-centered participatory approach in which farmers learn by observation, experimentation and evaluation — the project was initially implemented in just four of KTDA’s 54 factories.

Introducing farmers to sustainability

At the time, when I explained the concept of ‘sustainability’ to farmers I said it referred to something that not only keeps getting better but also has no end. Now, as I reflect on my work with producers, I realize that sustainability is not just about what we have been able to achieve, but also where we’re set to go.

Interacting with farmers during training sessions is always the most memorable part of my work. These sessions have helped farmers to realize that they have the potential to make improvements in their livelihoods and the environment that benefit them, their families and neighbors as well as future generations.

Over the course of this project — which came to an end in 2008 — we saw a great deal of success on the ground. We were able to work with tea farmers to improve knowledge of good agricultural practices; improve relations within communities; and increase tea yields by an average of 5 to 15 percent. The pilot project left participants excited and inspired by the improvements they had achieved, and prepared us for more work on sustainable agriculture with smallholder farmers in the other tea growing regions.

A year after the project started, Unilever made the decision to partner with the Rainforest Alliance on a journey to have all of the teas they buy for their PG tips and Lipton tea brands sourced from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms by 2015.  Generally speaking, it’s easier for large scale tea companies to organize themselves and implement the Rainforest Alliance certification program (especially when compared with smallholder farmer groups). In Kenya, the groups around each factory are made up of about 10,000 farmers, each with an average tea plot of .5 acres (.2 hectares) growing alongside assorted crops – like  maize and beans – and dairy cows.

Moving toward certification

For smallholder tea farmer groups in Kenya, the pilot project was a natural entry point into the Rainforest Alliance Certified program. These farmers were already familiar with Unilever’s vision of sustainable agriculture, which overlapped a great deal with the Rainforest Alliance program. Nonetheless, it was not easy for these farmers to achieve certification. There were major challenges around training, including the difficulty of introducing a large number of smallholders to certification requirements (which not only apply to the crop being considered for certification — in this case, tea — but to the whole farm).  Farmers also found requirements for the safe handling of agrochemicals difficult to implement – though no chemicals are applied to farm tea in Kenya, many farmers use agrochemicals  for other crops grown on their farms.

By the end of 2009, all four factories (Momul, Ngere, Nyansiongo and Mungania) representing a total of 38,000 farmers had overcome these challenges to become Rainforest Alliance Certified. It was a tremendous achievement and the beginning of a long sustainability journey for these producers.

Changing my path

In 2009, I transitioned from Unilever to the Rainforest Alliance. Though I felt a great deal of excitement and privilege on my first official day with the Rainforest Alliance, I hardly noticed the change as I continued promoting sustainable agriculture principles among smallholder farmers in collaboration with Unilever and the Kenya Tea Development Agency.

Because the pilot project was a great success, the Rainforest Alliance, Unilever and KTDA began scaling up the work in 2009*. Our main objective was to introduce the Farmer Field School methodology to all other KTDA factories and implement the Rainforest Alliance certification program in 20 chosen factories. The Rainforest Alliance took on the role of project manager and I was asked to lead this work.

The implementation of the scaling up phase started in 2010. Since then, it’s been successful beyond expectations, thanks largely to support from the Rainforest Alliance’s training partner in Kenya, Partner Africa.

Leading the way

The commitment made by Unilever to source tea from Rainforest Alliance Certified origins was followed by similar commitments from other major tea buyers including Tata Global Beverages for their Tetley brand, Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate for their Yorkshire Tea brand and Twinings for their Everyday brand.  All of these market commitments stimulated an unprecedented demand for Rainforest Alliance Certified tea, ultimately leading to an ambitious program to help tea farms and groups in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, India, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Indonesia, China and other countries to become certified.

Expanding our focus

Although I have focused most of my training and support on smallholder tea farmer groups in Kenya, I have also worked with coffee farms and cooperative groups and one smallholder flower group. In addition, I was charged with rolling out the Rainforest Alliance’s tea program across East and South Africa, where I have found the ideas and lessons from the Kenyan model very useful.

By mid-2012, out of a total of 54 KTDA factory companies representing 560,000 farmers, 35 groups are certified, 12 are preparing for certification and the remaining 7 have just started certification preparations. We expect all 54 KTDA factory companies to be certified by the end of 2013.  More than 30,000 smallholder farmers (outside the KTDA) are also implementing the Rainforest Alliance program in Kenya.

There are also ongoing programs with coffee extension companies like Ecom, Coffee Management Services and Tropical Farm Management to train several coffee cooperatives and farms. On the regional front, we have been working with more than 75,000 tea smallholders in Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi and Burundi.

As I said at a recent dinner in Nairobi to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the Rainforest Alliance, I have to pinch myself to believe how much we have achieved in three and a half years! These achievements have all been made possible with the support of the amazing and dedicated team from the Rainforest Alliance, Partner Africa, Unilever, the Ethical Tea Partnership and their buyer members, the KTDA and Africert.

*Our work on this project was co-funded by the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative and the Dutch Embassy in Kenya.

Support for Voluntary Forest Carbon Markets at COP18

Campbell Moore, carbon specialist for the Rainforest Alliance, reports on developments in the voluntary carbon market at COP18.

Last week, I headed to Qatar to join the Rainforest Alliance’s climate team at COP18 and observe the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations.  In addition to providing a global platform to advance climate change policies and negotiations, the climate talks also serve as the world’s largest climate change trade fair, helping the Rainforest Alliance to spread the word about our important work and keep track of major developments concerning climate change and the world’s forests. One conversation that kept our attention: the emerging role of voluntary forest carbon standards and carbon markets.

Voluntary carbon markets continue to pioneer ways to leverage market forces for conservation, sustainability and climate change mitigation.  Forest carbon projects, including Afforestation and Reforestation (A/R), Improved Forest Management (IFM), and Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) play a crucial role in demonstrating that carbon projects can have legitimate benefits for people, climate and the environment.

Indeed, the REDD+ Mechanism that the COP to the UNFCCC have been negotiating for several years is a concept tested first in voluntary carbon markets.  In recent years, REDD+ has been one of the most successful approaches for conserving forests and biodiversity, and offering benefits to forest-dependent communities to emerge from the yearly negotiations.

Unfortunately, this year’s COP18 includes a possible stalling of REDD+ negotiations.  If talks conclude at a standstill, the voluntary carbon markets will continue to pave the way for some time. However, for REDD to succeed, the UNFCCC must accomplish more and more quickly. The finance needed to cut deforestation in half by 2030 is unlikely without an internationally agreed upon REDD framework. Nonetheless, there is much to be gained from the experience of private sector investment in voluntary forest carbon projects, which has broken innovative ground since the emergence of voluntary carbon standards.

For example, in 2012 VCS  – the current market leader — developed guidance on how to incorporate individual projects into scaled up national and regional initiatives.  Since nested REDD plans seems essential for effective execution, such guidance is extremely beneficial to the UNFCCC. Innovative and complex new methodologies, standards and guidance have also been developed for imperiled and high-carbon forest ecosystems like peat swamp forests and mangroves.  There is also an increased appreciation for the need to establish robust safeguards in these projects to ensure benefits to biodiversity and communities, evidenced by the great number of events on this topic often led by the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Alliance.

As one of the leading auditors of forest carbon projects, the Rainforest Alliance helps to bring legitimacy and validity to this market.  From US to Peru and Madagascar to Indonesia, our auditors ensure that on the ground these projects have the utmost benefits for people, the environment and our global climate.

Part II: What Can We Learn from Brazil?

We’re back with a second blog from Chad Trewick, senior director of tea and coffee at Caribou Coffee, the first major US coffee chain to source 100 percent Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee. Here, Chad discusses the need to celebrate model farms and reward good agricultural practices.

It’s so important for us to feature and celebrate good practices by showcasing the work of “model farms.” Farms like these exemplify the innovative and responsible spirit needed to pursue sustainable and game-changing endeavors (and, eventually, monetize them). One farm we visited – Fazenda Juliana in Monte Carmelo, Brazil — was truly advanced in their long-term thinking and practices, going far beyond complying with environmental and social laws. While this kind of achievement is not financially accessible to most producers, those who have the resources and the motivation to achieve in this area deserve to be celebrated.

Recycling containers on Fazenda Juliana.

Leaders in Environmental Education

Fazenda Juliana has achieved special recognition for the education it provides to the children of farm laborers — education that far exceeds government requirements. As more young people leave farms behind for city life, their knowledge and appreciation of the community’s cultural heritage is waning. This move can exacerbate the challenge of finding a good labor force for agricultural work.

To combat this problem, Fazenda Juliana’s onsite school educates students about farming and gardening with a vegetable garden and orchard that students work in and eat from. The school also has a program allowing students to sell this produce (for their financial benefit) and learn about the business side of farming. Students also have access to an impressive number of computers, preparation for a technologically advanced workforce — whether on a farm or in an office.

Advances in Alternative Energy

A sign prohibits hunting on Fazenda Juliana.

Fazenda Juliana operates a small roasting operation that is fueled almost entirely by vegetable oil. It grows sunflowers, presses them, refines the oil, and uses it to fuel its generator. Even the exhaust from the generator smells good! We discussed whether this experiment actually paid off. In the end, it depends on the cost of petrol: when oil is cheaper, the sunflower operation can come at a slight premium. Most of the time, however, it is financially and environmentally beneficial to rely on vegetable oil instead of petroleum.

The farm employs a methane capture/biogas system that processes a portion of the farm’s human waste and other byproducts for supplemental fuel. One of the craziest alternative energy sources Fazenda Juliana is experimenting with is a plastic to oil conversion. A contraption that looks like something out of Willy Wonka produces a petroleum liquid that can be used in combination with gasoline to fuel a portable hot-water mister that sprays and kill weeds (a substitute for herbicides).

Workers have their own gardens and the opportunity to raise their own food.

Social Standout

An onsite dental and medical facility is available to all workers and their families. Even more impressive, Fazenda Juliana uses lessons learned from those operations to inform future improvements in farm conditions. For example, if they begin to notice that a number of workers are experiencing an illness or symptoms, they track down the reason for this increase in illness and begin the process of rectifying the problem.

A Commitment to Collaboration

As our visit came to an end, the cooperative representatives and producers I spoke with emphasized the need for ongoing relationships, mutual learning and shared innovation in sustainability. Caribou feels a great sense of pride for the position our company has taken to support Rainforest Alliance certification – influencing consumer behavior and empowering producers to earn a premium for their coffee. Our contributions to this growing and widespread movement should move us closer and closer to the “tipping point” when responsible behaviors become the new normal.

Read Part I of Chad’s blog from Brazil.

Part I: What Can We Learn From Brazil?

Chad Trewick is senior director of coffee and tea at Caribou Coffee – the first major coffee company in the US to source 100 percent of its coffee from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms. Here, he writes about a recent trip to Brazil to explore sustainable coffee production.

Brazil is a generation (maybe even two or three) ahead of the rest of the coffee-producing world in terms of technology, efficiency, sustainability and productivity per area. In fact, practices in the world’s most important coffee-producing country could pave the way for sustainable coffee production globally, securing a steady supply in the face of climate change, volatility and land-use pressures. The country is not, however, impervious to those changes; this year, folks in Brazil experienced the first June rainfall in collective memory, causing quality compromises and headaches for everyone involved in coffee production.

As part of an ongoing project with the Rainforest Alliance designed to determine the measurable benefits and value of certification, I embarked on a trip with the organization’s Sustainable Agriculture Network partner in Brazil, Imaflora. The goal was to see and understand innovations and best practices in sustainability, and to share these with producers and exporters in other countries.

On our way to our first stop, Rodrigo Cascalles of Imaflora and I discussed how we can determine the objective “value” of certification. It should come as no surprise that typically the top motivation for certification is the price premium a producer can receive. But while the financial benefit is huge incentive, other reasons weigh heavily, too.

Leaders in Environmental Law

Brazilian social and environmental laws are nearly unparalleled in agriculture. Twenty percent of a producer’s land must be set aside as a forest reserve; waterways are strictly protected; and rigid social laws governing labor conditions and services abound.

According Imaflora, complying with Brazilian regulations will bring any law-abiding producer as much as 90 percent of the way to certification! (For comparison, picture the agricultural landscape in the US — we plant crops right up to just about any body of water, roadway or abode.) A few months ago, however, laws changed and the waterway protection rules became dependent on the size of the river or lake. In some cases, less protection is now required. New laws also reward producers who exceed their requirements for natural reserves, permitting them to receive payment from other producers who need to comply with the reserve area requirements.

Protectors of People

Farmers also speak of the rigorous social requirements imposed by the government. Any worker who steps onto a farm to work must first receive a baseline medical exam. The government also mandates worker housing, setting minimum standards for the exact space each worker is allotted, the size and thickness of his mattresses (including its distance from the ceiling and the space between mattresses), and the layout of bathroom facilities and eating areas. Conditions in the field are also carefully defined: sunscreen must be available for use; arms and necks must be covered by clothing; drinking water must be available; a shade tent must be provided; portable toilets must be on site, and ankles need to be covered to protect from snakes. Compared to conditions I see regularly on farms in other countries, these mandates are absolutely amazing — but, as I was reminded several times, it is also a lot for a producer to be held accountable for.

Rainforest Alliance Certification in Brazil

Producers pointed out that the government is much less likely to inspect and enforce national regulations on a Rainforest Alliance Certified farm because they know that the farm must be in compliance in order to be certified.  However, because Rainforest Alliance certification requires compliance with all local mandates, the cost of production for law-abiding and certified producers is actually significantly higher than the national average. We need to continuously highlight the benefits of certification — and not only the incremental costs  – in conversations with all members of the supply chain. The cost of certification shouldn’t overshadow the very real on-the-ground benefits. The fact that Rainforest Alliance Certified farms are considered the best places to work for a laborer highlights the better conditions on these farms.

Farmers also receive a sought-after premium for their Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee. And, when they implement production efficiencies, they can maximize these premiums.

The record-keeping and continuous improvement requirements mandated by the Rainforest Alliance provide tangible productivity benefits. A producer’s logged activities are studied and evaluated annually so that they can improve their conditions and reduce their resource usage.

Certification also results in improvements in flora and fauna. Most farmers I spoke with truly celebrated (in an unsolicited way) all of the species and the natural elements that are returning to their farms and, in some cases, even benefiting their operations. They told me about native bird species, increased wild boar sightings, and diversified native species planted in forest reserves. This appreciation of nature is being passed to future generations and the broader community, and helping to create a culture with a deeper respect for nature.

Certified farms are also required to be responsible members of their communities. Many are involved in school improvement projects and clean-up efforts, and place a great emphasis on educating students about the importance of caring for the environment. This can be a particularly effective tool for educating adults. Children of farm workers can take messages home and begin the process of educating their parents. Students also learn to be better guardians of their limited resources. At one school, for example, students were asked to turn trash into usable items to demonstrate that most things can (and should) be more than single-use.

Cooperatives in Brazil

As in many other countries, cooperatives in Brazil can provide an opportunity for increased efficiency because producers are working with greater crop volume. And through their technical assistance programs, many cooperatives are actively encouraging certification.

I visited one coop on a multi-year plan toward 100 percent certification among its members by 2014. Another coop was working toward 70 to 80 percent certification by the end of next year.  This widespread certification support among coops is a great endorsement and empowers producers to make the decision to pursue certification.

Check back to read part II of Chad’s blog from Brazil.

Report from the World Cocoa Conference

Last week, key players in the cocoa industry came together at the first-ever World Cocoa Conference in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.  The Rainforest Alliance sent a delegation, including Christian Mensah, manager of sustainable landscapes in West Africa, Mercedes Tallo, international director of sustainable value chains, and Sarah Fadika Khanu, cocoa program associate. Here, Sarah shares a dispatch from the milestone event.

On November 17 I left London for Abidjan, a city known as the Perle des Lagunes (Pearl of the Lagoons), to attend the World Cocoa Conference. Even at the airport, I could feel the excitement surrounding the conference and the pride locals felt about hosting such a landmark event.

The World Cocoa Conference was an extraordinary occasion, bringing together an incredible array of important players in the cocoa industry including growers, traders, buyers, nonprofits and major chocolate manufacturers. Ivorians, who lead the world in the production and export of cocoa, hadn’t been this excited about cocoa since the “Ivorian Miracle” of the 1970s – 1980s, a time when favorable prices on the international cocoa markets fortuitously coincided with a stable political environment.

The whole country mobilized to host the conference, which they hoped would revive an economy in crisis — and a country in turmoil — since 2010. Held at the “Hotel Ivoire,” a fitting symbol of the country’s past glory, the World Cocoa Conference provided one of the industry’s greatest platforms since the 2008 International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) conference in Trinidad and Tobago.  Experts and industry representatives from around the world attended, and I was able to put faces to the names of many people with whom I’d corresponded over email.

Sarah Fadika, Melanie Bayo and Mercedes Tallo attend the World Cocoa Conference.

For the people of Cote d’Ivoire, the conference provided an opportunity to discuss increasing cocoa productivity, addressing the difficult problem of child labor, improving the image of Ivorian cocoa and, most importantly, bettering the livelihood of cocoa farmers.

Increasingly, the perspectives of Ivorian authorities are coming in line with those of the global cocoa industry.  Both are focused on rewarding good production practices and highlighting the importance of sustainability and certification. We all want to bring the cocoa sector beyond certification to conserve biodiversity, improve livelihoods and ensure ethical trading.

For the Rainforest Alliance team, the opportunity to build even more support for these principles arose on the second day of the conference. The panel on certification was the most highly attended and one of the most controversial. Against this background, Christian brilliantly demonstrated that the Rainforest Alliance certification program has always focused on achieving sustainability and working in the best interest of farmers, the environment and their communities.

He explained that the Rainforest Alliance is unique — especially when compared with other certification bodies — because we are so much more than a certification body. We have technical teams in agriculture, forestry, climate, education, and monitoring and evaluation that work at the field level.

The biggest sustainability challenges for the cocoa industry are in the areas of productivity improvement, yield increase, biodiversity protection and overall improvement of farmer’s livelihoods. Emotions ran high at the session when the audience heard from cocoa farmers, who expressed their disappointment about the current cocoa system in Cote d’Ivoire and explained how they felt cheated by the global market.

The conference highlighted the fact that farmers, their children and the protection of the environment must remain key priorities in the industry. We left feeling humbled yet optimistic about the future of our work in cocoa and the direction the industry is headed as a whole.

Good News for Cocoa and the Global Food System

Eric Servat, senior manager of the Rainforest Alliance’s cocoa program, talks about the growth and challenges of our cocoa work.

While Halloween is the peak time for chocolate news in the US, the holidays are  our peak chocolate eating season.   Any chocolate enjoyed in the US is likely to contain cocoa grown in Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer.  And cocoa beans from Côte d’Ivoire are now increasingly likely to be grown on Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM farms.

Rainforest Alliance certification has grown phenomenally in Côte d’Ivoire since leading brands such as Mars, Unilever, Kraft and Hershey, and processors such as Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest chocolate manufacturer, committed to sourcing their cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms. Some 75,000 Ivorian farms, covering more than 1.2 million acres (500,000 hectares), have become Rainforest Alliance Certified in just the last six years.  This massive expansion is driven by the recognition that cocoa farmers’ incomes and yields need to rise dramatically to make cocoa production  sustainable, and that certification can help accomplish these goals.

There are more than a million cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, the vast majority of them smallholders, plus another 3.5 million Ivorians who depend on income from cocoa-related activities.  After a brief spike during the 2011 civil conflict, prices paid to farmers for cocoa beans are again low. Until recently, Ivorian farmers received a fraction of what cocoa sold for on commodities markets in London and New York.  Côte d’Ivoire has a long history of price volatility, exploited smallholders earning low wages and child labor.

These are intertwined, systemic and longstanding problems.  But they’re problems with consequences too severe to tolerate, and the new Ivorian government acknowledges that they must be remedied.  Unfair cocoa prices and poverty wages for cocoa farmers have been cited as important factors in Côte d’Ivoire’s political instability during the last 11 years of civil war.  The Nation wrote in 2011, “The fundamental reason that fighting is breaking out again [in Côte d'Ivoire is] a profoundly unjust international economic order that pays the people who supply our primary products a pittance and leaves their nations chronically ill with unemployment and poverty, and with people who will fight one another over scarce resources.”

Unrest in Côte d’Ivoire threatened disruptions in cocoa supply, already under long-term pressure from pests, fungi, unsustainable farming techniques and, increasingly, climate change and drought.  Supply will have to increase steadily to meet progressively climbing demand  — for the last century, cocoa demand has grown consistently at a rate of 3 percent a year.   Low yields have raised speculation about future cocoa shortages.  More fundamentally, low yields and inadequate incomes undercut the aspirations of millions of Ivorians for better lives for themselves and their families, and basic equity for growers of this $5 billion global commodity.

The key to achieving justice for Ivorians and an adequate future supply of cocoa for consumers is to raise yields dramatically.  It can certainly be done.  After working with USDA and IBM to map the cocoa genome, Mars announced this year it knows how to raise yields from 400 kg per hectare to 1,500 kg. Beyond assuring future supply, higher yields generate higher income for farmers, and reduce economic pressures that exploit smallholders and draw children into working on the farms.

Since 2008 the Rainforest Alliance has worked with multiple stakeholders to make cocoa production sustainable and raise yields and profitability. In Côte d’Ivoire and elsewhere, Rainforest Alliance Certified farms rely on sustainable soil, crop, pest, water and energy management to cut costs and raise yields on existing farmland, without clearing forestland for crops or resorting to damaging slash-and-burn, chemical-intensive methods.  The Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) recently studied the impact of Rainforest Alliance certification on cocoa farming in Côte d’Ivoire.   It found that after adopting sustainable techniques and becoming certified, farms increased their yields 58 percent, and raised their net incomes by almost a factor of four.

Meanwhile, the Coffee and Cocoa Council issued this new reform, which  has raised expectations; their objectives are to promote transparency, sustainability, fair pricing and farmers group strengthening.   We’re confident that as certification grows, and collaboration continues to improve among the key actors, so will the lives of cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire.

Problems there remain entrenched — prices and yields generally are low, farms are vulnerable, examples of child labor and other abuses aren’t yet hard to find, future and sustainable supply isn’t yet secure.  Farmers and those who depend on them are still poor and competing for scarce resources.  But certification has proven an efficient tool for increasing yields and multiplying farmers’ incomes, putting more farms and livelihoods on a sustainable footing.

Globally, we’re facing rising food demand as the population heads to 10 billion by mid-century and emerging economies eat higher on the food chain.  To meet this demand, the global food system must do what Côte d’Ivoire is now doing: working with stakeholders to raise yields on existing farmland sustainably, without clearing more forests, degrading more grazing land or exacerbating climate change and biodiversity loss. Rainforest Alliance certification offers a body of evidence that argues this can be done, and is being done, by adopting environmentally and socially sustainable farming practices that help local ecosystems and communities thrive together.