In honor of World Water Day, we’re taking you on a tour of a Rainforest Alliance Certified™ Rwandan tea factory where streams now run clean. You’ll be astonished by the incredible impact that certification can have on water quality.
This video was produced by Betty’s and Taylor’s of Harrogate with support from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), through the Food Retail Industry Challenge Fund (FRICH).
We thought the International Day of Forests was the perfect excuse to share a few beautiful photos of these biodiverse wonders.
Mediterranean forests have a short growing season and a mix of hard and soft wood trees. They can be found along the coasts of California, Chile, Western Australia and (you guessed it) the Mediterranean.
Temperate forests—located in eastern North America, northeastern Asia, and western and eastern Europe–typically feature a combination of coniferous and deciduous evergreens.
Most of the precipitation in cloud forests (also known as montane forests) comes from a mist that rises up from the lowlands. These forests can be found in tropical, subtropical and temperate zones.
Plantation forests—covering more than 345 million acres of land around the globe—produce around 40 percent of all industrial wood.
Found near the equator, tropical forests are characterized by year-round high temperatures, plentiful rainfall and thick, lush growth.
We don’t often talk fashion on this blog. That’s changing today for a very special reason: Livia Firth, creative director of Eco-Age and co-founder of the Green Carpet Challenge, has granted us an exclusive interview. Early this month, the Gucci for the Green Carpet Challenge handbag collection was launched during Paris Fashion Week; the handbags are the first-ever products made with leather from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ ranches.
Livia Firth with her Gucci for the Green Carpet handbag.
What inspired you to start Eco-Age?
It was my brother Nicola Giuggioli’s idea a few years ago.
How has it evolved over time?
When we started the business in January 2007 it was a retailer on the high street selling design-driven home products and offering consultancy service for home owners who were interested in “greening up” their houses. Today, Eco-Age is a consultancy company specializing in enabling businesses to achieve growth and add value through sustainability–we have a wide array of clients both in the fashion and in the corporate world.
Tell us about the Green Carpet Challenge.
British journalist Lucy Siegle challenged me to wear only eco-friendly gowns on the red carpets when Colin received the Golden Globe nomination for Tom Ford’s A Single Man. We started it as a trial and it became so successful that today we are working with all the big fashion houses and working deep in the supply chain.
We don’t normally think of the big fashion houses being eco-friendly. Why did you approach Gucci with this idea?
We wanted to work with Gucci for few reasons. A lot of Brazilian leather arrives in Italy, is stamped “Made in Italy” after the tanning process and used by many fashion houses that are not aware of its real provenance. Gucci is an iconic brand, especially for leather products, so it was the perfect partner for creating a fully traceable and “clean” new supply chain. Moreover, they are part of PPR group, which started addressing sustainability few years ago when Mr. Pinault created PPR Home. Gucci’s CSR department is strong and serious, their factories in Florence we visited few times, so they were the perfect partner for this.
Did you think they’d be interested?
I was working with Frida already on The Green Carpet Challenge so it was a natural step.
You are clearly passionate about green issues. How much involvement have you personally had with the creation of the Gucci for the Green Carpet Challenge handbag?
I followed the project every step of the way–working closely with both Dr. Nathalie Walker at NWF and Ms. Rossella Ravagli, head of CSR, at Gucci.
What has the reaction been to the bags?
[They have been] a huge success!
The bags are made of leather sourced from Rainforest Alliance Certified ranches, meaning that the leather has been produced in a way that benefits the environment and farming communities, while promoting the humane treatment of livestock. How much did you know about the Rainforest Alliance before this venture?
I knew them and what they were doing but never had the pleasure of working closely with them. It has been a great adventure and hopefully just the beginning of many more to do together!
What next for Eco-Age and the Green Carpet Challenge?
We are announcing another big project at the Cannes Film Festival in May. I can’t reveal anything now but watch out for it!
Did you know that over 245,000 metric tons of coffee is produced on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms? Being Italian, how important is coffee to you?
Coffee is very important–not only for Italians–but for world trade, too. Colin and I have been very involved in coffee trading for many years; our first ever Oxfam trip was in Ethiopia to visit the coffee farmers! So I look forward to visiting the Rainforest Alliance Certified farms too!
Many thanks to Livia Firth for taking the time to chat with us!
What captivated the conservation community this week?
Conservationists at CITES voted to regulate the trade of three types of hammerhead sharks.
As an independent, third-party auditor, the Rainforest Alliance offers validation and verification services* against six leading carbon standards. One such standard, the Climate Action Reserve (CAR), has recently garnered substantial attention for its potential to become integrated into the United State’s first state level cap-and-trade program in California. Kassy Holmes, a member of the Rainforest Alliance’s climate program, summarizes recent developments surrounding California’s policies and discusses how carbon project auditing services, such as those conducted by the Rainforest Alliance, can confirm a project’s credibility and play an increasingly valuable role within emerging carbon offset programs.
Projects like this IFM project can avoid the release of hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere while helping polluters to offset their emissions.
California’s Cap-and-Trade Program and the CAR Standard
In 2006, California became the first state to pass legislation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigating the effects of climate change. Under Assembly Bill 32 (AB32), California plans to reduce its GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and then to levels 80 percent less than those of 1990 by 2050. As part of these efforts, California will implement a cap-and-trade program managed through the California Air Resource Board (ARB). Cap-and-trade schemes set a “cap” on allowable GHG emission levels for covered entities, such as polluting industries. Covered entities can then buy, sell and trade GHG offsets to “offset” a portion of their emissions to remain within the levels set by the cap. Polluters will also have the option to offset eight percent of their emissions through the purchase of carbon credits.
CAR began in 2001 and was in many ways a precursor to ARB’s protocols. It has greatly influenced California’s approach and four of CAR’s protocols have been adopted for use in ARB regulation. CAR is also an approved Offset Project Registry (OPR) under ARB, which means that CAR projects can now generate credits that can be used by industries being regulated under the ARB offset scheme.
California is also pursuing agreements to utilize carbon credits from international Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) projects and has established a REDD Offset Working Group (ROW) to further explore sourcing credits from Chiapas and Acre in Mexico. ROW has released its “Draft Recommendations from the REDD Offset Working Group” which describes options for linking jurisdictional REDD+ projects to California’s cap-and-trade program and is available for public comment until April 30, 2013. Although no final decision has been made regarding REDD+ offsets, allowing such projects to participate in the ARB compliance market could provide a substantial incentive for REDD+. There has, however, been some debate over ability to ensure credibility with these projects. Independent, third-party auditing can help to address these concerns by confirming a project’s credibility through its adherence to the rigorous requirements of a carbon standard.
Rainforest Alliance auditor Lawson Henderson uses a hypsometer to calculate the height of trees.
The Role of Independent Auditing Services
In order for California’s compliance offset plans to work, there must be effective, legitimate carbon projects to buy credits from in the first place. In addition to being authorized to audit forest carbon projects against the CAR standard, the Rainforest Alliance recently became an ARB accredited verification body. This means that we are authorized to conduct verification audits of forest carbon projects against the requirements of ARB protocols. Our auditors, partners and consultants undertake critical steps to ensure that projects conform to the requirements of a standard’s protocols. I recently observed some of this work on a field visit to an improved forest management (IFM) project in Greenville, Maine that is seeking verification against CAR.
During this three-day field visit, the audit team replicated the project developer’s methodology and collected a range of data from a sample of forest inventory plots, including tree species, diameter at breast height (DBH), tree height and the stage of decay for dead or dying trees. All of this information is used to measure the amount of carbon sequestered in a tree. This information is then analyzed and compared to the forest inventory data utilized on the project to determine whether or not the project developer’s inventory methods and data is sound–just one of the many essential activities that auditors carry out to confirm a project’s conformance to a standard and assure its credibility.
Forest carbon projects across the US and REDD projects in Mexico could soon become integrated into California’s emissions reduction efforts. It will be fascinating to see how this all plays out over the next year. Strong, independent auditing will certainly play a crucial role in providing quality assurance and credibility concerning GHG emissions reduction and sequestration claims. As a leader in REDD+ and carbon project verifications and validations, the Rainforest Alliance is well positioned to help steward the success of these efforts.
Visit our website to learn more about Rainforest Alliance’s carbon project validation and verification services.
*Validation is third-party evaluation that confirms that a project uses recognized and reliable methods for reducing greenhouse gases or demonstrating community and biodiversity benefit. Verification is third-party verification of the GHG reductions and community and biodiversity benefits that have occurred.
Not long ago, Mullak’as Misminay was a forgotten Andean community situated in the middle of the Sacred Valley of the Inca. The 500 families who lived there struggled to earn a decent income through subsistence agriculture and textile production, missing a huge opportunity to earn a secure livelihood through sustainable tourism. With help from Condor Travel, a Rainforest Alliance Verified™ tour operator, Mullak’as Misminay residents have made incredible strides. Today, they are a powerful example of the potential of community-based rural tourism to change lives. Since 2008, Condor Travel has helped the community to generate new revenue from tourism while promoting the cultural identity of its people. We spoke with Daysy Ángeles, a project manager at Condor Travel, about the community’s transformation.
Tell us a little about the project.
Thanks to sponsorship from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB-MIF) and the Dutch Cooperation Agency (SNV), Condor Travel has helped the Mullak’as Misminay people to develop an “experiential tourism” offering that allows visitors to learn first-hand about the community’s way of life while helping local residents become skilled providers of lodging, food and guided tours.
We have provided training in basic hospitality and cuisine techniques to participating local residents, and we are developing a program to improve agricultural and textile techniques to strengthen their capabilities so that their products can gain access to new markets. We are also investing in improving the area’s infrastructure, including organizing and optimizing signage for tourist attractions, facilitating distribution and access to drinking water and food, and financing improvements to bathrooms, kitchens, room furnishings and dining areas in houses that will receive visitors. The project also includes training programs, enhanced equipment, and better marketing for porters, artisans and farmers.
Why did Condor Travel decide to support this community initiative?
We have had a close relationship with the Mullak’as Misminay community since the 1990s, when we started to hire local men to work as porters, cooks and assistants for adventure routes like the famous Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Then we began a philanthropic support plan to help them in matters of health, education and family, which strengthened the trust between the company and the community. Finally, we got the chance to implement the inclusive business project in experiential tourism, creating new “win-win” opportunities for the business and the community.
Tell us more about the families benefiting from the project.
The project aims to benefit 300 families by developing inclusive businesses in economic activities such as tourism, agriculture, crafts and portaging. We are working on the construction of a water storage system with the municipality, IDB-MIF and SNV, which will improve access to water for drinking and for irrigation, increasing the social and economic impact of the project.
Condor Travel’s Mullak’as Misminay project placed third in the 2013 Responsible Tourism Showcase at this year’s Educational Travel Conference. What did that recognition mean to you?
This international recognition comes after five years of constant work on the project, so it is certainly an incentive to further improve and expand the benefits to other communities of Cuzco.
How did the community react to the award?
The community received the news very enthusiastically! The people see it as a reward for their efforts to learn and launch a new business that is opening new opportunities for their families. The recognition also included a monetary award that will be used to give some scholarships to young people in the community who are being trained in Cuzco.
How do you involve tourists in your sustainability efforts?
Through the experiential tours, visitors learn about and experience the community’s way of life. For example, after a traditional welcome with music, they are encouraged to participate in tilling the land, using traditional farming techniques. They also learn about how local plants used as healing folk remedies and in making natural dyes, and how textiles are made by hand using ancient techniques.
This project was implemented by Condor Travel’s nonprofit association, Wings. Can you tell us more about Wings?
Condor Travel founded Wings to promote and implement corporate social responsibility and sustainable tourism programs, and to channel aid and donations from our strategic partners who want to support low-income communities through responsible tourism.
Wings is also a platform to promote volunteerism in the communities of Cuzco, and to disseminate the challenges and benefits of inclusive businesses in national tourism networks and private sector unions.
How does Condor Travel benefit from its commitment to sustainability?
Condor Travel has created a high-quality, innovative tourism product that generates unique experiences for its customers. We’ve noticed an increase in sales for these kinds of products, which motivates us to design new programs involving communities.
In addition, with the efforts that we implement to care for the environment (such as using less paper and energy), we generate significant savings and help raise environmental awareness among our collaborators, which has repercussions on their family life.
What’s next for the Mullak’as Misminay project?
We hope to expand the project’s benefits to other sectors of the community–for example, by improving the water supply, we can strengthen agriculture. Wings is expanding its areas of work, including new communities in its corporate social responsibility program and promoting the destination to volunteers to support the development of new sustainable tourism programs in the area.
Our general goal is to continue working under the guidelines of sustainable tourism at national and international destinations, so our next step will be to involve the regional Condor Travel offices in South America in these projects.
Visit www.SustainableTrip.org to learn more about sustainable tourism operations like Condor Travel that are good for people, wildlife and the global environment.
How do we know our work with cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire is improving lives, lands and livelihoods?
We commissioned the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) to conduct on-the-ground research in the West African country. In 2009, and again in 2011, COSA scientists collected data at Rainforest Alliance Certified and non-certified farms, representing a total of 452 farm visits. Their research revealed an assortment of changes on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in the world’s largest cocoa producing nation:
Want to learn more? Meet an Ivoirian farmer benefiting from Rainforest Alliance certification.
