Certifications

Certifications / Rainforest Alliance

Rainforest Alliance updates standards

Rainforest Alliance promotes standards for sustainable production of a variety of agriculture crops through standards set by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN). In order for a farm to be Rainforest Alliance certified, they must comply with an overarching set of standards, with some crops requiring additional or specific standards. Evaluation of compliance audits are done by Sustainable Farm Certification, International.

In July 2010, the SAN Sustainable Agriculture Standard was revised and updated from the previous version dated April 2009. Several criteria were added. The ones dealing with the environment are:

  • Farms must know the sources of their energy, how much they use, and have an energy efficiency plan.
  • Farms must implement a plan to maintain or restore connectivity of natural ecosystems within their boundaries.
  • Farms must implement measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase carbon dioxide sequestration.

None of these are critical (required), but are rather novel and worthwhile additions to coffee certification schemes in particular.

The following criteria having to do with the environment were modified:

  • The criteria regarding farms not destroying any natural ecosystem, a critical criterion, is now more detailed and specific. It now also says that any natural ecosystems purposefully destroyed since late 1999 need to undergo analysis and mitigation.
  • The criteria regarding the prohibition on harvesting of endangered or threatened plants now includes the language “or other taking” of these plants. A statement banning certification of farms that have deforested in the two years prior to the start of the certification process has been deleted.

It appears that farms that underwent deforestation within two years of the start of the certification process can now be certified, but have to implement some sort of mitigation process. I’m not sure if this is a net gain or not.

You can read through these now-current standards in this PDF document.

As far as I know, there have been no revisions to the coffee standard; the last version I have is November 2005.

Certifications / Retail and specialty roasters / Starbucks

Starbucks CAFE Practices

[Some updates at the end of the post, the latest in July 2026]

I have provided information on the five major certifications applied to coffee: organic, Fair Trade, Smithsonian Bird-Friendly, Rainforest Alliance, and Utz Certified.

Starbucks does sell certified organic and Fair Trade coffees. You can see how much coffee they (and other major companies) purchase and how much is eco-certified in this data table, which is kept updated.

Starbucks also has its own green coffee sourcing standard, known as CAFE (Coffee and Farm Equity) Practices.  It was developed in partnership with the non-profit environmental group Conservation International and SCS Global Services. (SCS), an independent evaluation and verification company. The CAFE Practices program covers four categories. Two, product quality and economic accountability, are criteria that are required by all Starbucks suppliers. The other two categories are social responsibility and environmental leadership. I’ll focus on the environmental criteria.

How it works

Like some other certifications, CAFE Practices operates on a point system. The social responsibility and environmental leadership categories are divided into sections. A least 60% of possible points are needed for preferred supplier status, and 80% for strategic supplier status. These suppliers get enhanced pricing and contract terms. [Update: the average score was 80%, and 60% of supplies were preferred or strategic; these data were for all new and renewing farms in the year 2012.]

A point is awarded for compliance with individual “indicators.” In the current version, there are 185 total indicators for large suppliers (greater than 12 ha) and 124 for smallholders, including those who are part of a cooperative.

In the section “Coffee Growing — Environmental Leadership” 45 points are possible (42 for smallholders).  Many of the individual indicators are actually multiple variations on the same criteria; only one of them can be counted for a point. For instance, the indicators dealing with organic mulch award a point for either 25% of the production area being covered by organic matter, 50%, or 100% — three indicators but only one point possible.

What kinds of environmental criteria are included?

The “Coffee Growing — Environmental Leadership” section covers water body protection, including criteria for width and type of vegetated buffer zones along permanent and seasonal water bodies, and use of chemicals or waste storage near water bodies; protection of soil resources, including measures to control and prevent erosion and use of organic mulches and cover crops; conserving biodiversity, including maintaining a shade canopy, protecting wildlife, and establishment of conservation areas; and environmental management, including pest and disease control.

There is an additional section that deals with environmental issues having to do with coffee processing, specific to either wet processing or dry processing, which includes indicators on water conservation, waste management, and energy use.

A closer look at Conserving Biodiversity

This particular subsection has three indicators that are mandatory: 1) native trees are only removed if they are a hazard to people or “significantly” compete with coffee plants, 2) hunting or commercial collecting of flora or fauna is prohibited, and 3) no conversion of natural forest to agricultural production.

Indicators specific to maintaining shade cover include percent cover, canopy tree diversity and native species benchmarks, and preservation of epiphytes and vines.

How does this stack up?

The Starbucks CAFE Practices environmental criteria address many more relevant ecological issues than either Fair Trade certification standards or UTZ Certified Good Inside standards. Although there is some lack of specificity (e.g., what constitutes native trees being in “significant” competition with coffee plants?), they are far less generic and more comprehensive than Fair Trade or UTZ standards. While the large number of indicators from which to garner points seems to make it easy for suppliers to attain favored status, I think that their division into sections and subsections covering a wide range of ecological issues is more valuable and should result in more eco-friendly farms than fewer, weaker, or more vague “requirements.”

To compare Starbucks CAFE Practices environmental criteria with those of Rainforest Alliance would probably take sitting down and mock-scoring some imaginary farms. I suspect that a farm meeting Rainforest Alliance’s minimum environmental standards would turn out to be using more sustainable growing methods than the typical Starbucks preferred supplier — although a lack of standardization among the standards might make that assessment difficult (Rainforest Alliance uses 99 criteria in 10 principals, with percentage thresholds for certification). It also wouldn’t surprise me that a Starbucks strategic supplier that scored highly in the Environmental Leadership sections could beat out a Rainforest Alliance-certified farm.

Because the Smithsonian Bird-Friendly biodiversity criteria are so well-developed and targeted, and since their certification also requires organic certification, their environmental standards are the strongest.

Overall, I’m generally impressed with the scope and level of detail of Starbucks CAFE Practices environmental standards, and find them superior to those of some highly-regarded certifications.

Criticisms and more resources

There have been accusations that the reality on the ground with some Starbucks suppliers is inconsistent with CAFE Practices standards. In some cases at least, that is true, but it is also true with other certifications; Starbucks tends to receive a lot of scrutiny. Third party verification systems are subject to the same corruption and deceit whether they are certifying organic products or Starbucks coffee. There are plenty of places where compliance can break down, and that’s the topic of a separate investigation.

To examine all of the Starbucks CAFE Practices criteria yourself, download the standards documents which are available online at the SCS web site. You can also download current and past Global Responsibility reports at the Starbucks website.

Updates:

  • Daily Coffee News summarizes Starbucks’ 2025 Global Impact Report, which includes some revisions to its CAFE Practices program including coffee sourcing.
  • This post discusses how the CAFE Practices program is assessed and its impacts.
  • In May 2015, I wrote an overview and update on Starbucks CAFE Practices for Daily Coffee News — read it here.
  • Starbucks has initiated other coffee sustainability projects, including farmer support centers, tree planting, coffee community support of several kinds, farmer loans, and co-founding the Sustainable Coffee Initiative. A summary about these efforts is at their website.

Starbucks coffee cup by Rudolf Schuba under a Creative Commons license.

Certifications / Organic coffee

New organic and eco-friendly coffee market data

(Update: I now regularly update the post Eco-certified coffee: How much is there? when new information is available.)

The North American Organic Coffee Industry Report 2010 by Daniele Giovannucci shows that the North American organic coffee market topped $1.4 billion dollars in 2009. This represents 93 million pounds (around 42,000 metric tons) of organic coffee imported into the United States and Canada, a 4.1% growth since last year.

Meanwhile, Rainforest Alliance reports that it sold 193 million (87,583 metric tons) of certified coffee in 2009 (worldwide), up 41%. They estimate this as 1.5% of the international export market

In its 2009 annual report (PDF), UTZ Certified announced the amount of coffee it certified was up over 18% to whopping 804 million pounds (365,000 metric tons), produced in 21 countries. The report also noted that UTZ Certified arabica coffee provided an average premium of 5.7 cents/lb.

2009 figures are not yet available for Smithsonian’s Bird-Friendly certified coffee (which is also certified organic), but their 2008 figures are in this post, when I last provided market share data on eco-friendly coffees.

For a little perspective, world production in 2009 was about 7.4 million metric tons, and the U.S. imported 1.4 million metric tons of coffee. Sustainably-grown coffees are still a small slice of the pie.

Photo by Joe McCarthy under a Creative Commons license.

Certifications

New quick guide to certifications

There’s a new item on the main menu bar called “Certifications” where I’ve put together a quick guide to the five most common coffee certifications. It summarizes the goal of each, outlines their standards related to shade management or habitat protection, fees and price premiums involved, and links to more information.

I also added this reminder to the end of the guide, and I think it’s worth repeating here:

These certifications cost the producers money — both in fees and in changes to their methods to achieve the standards. Yet certifications don’t add intrinsic value to coffee. The extra money the farmer receives for the coffee is often entirely dependent on what the consumer is willing to pay for the social or environmental benefits of the product. Don’t expect people in the developing world to shoulder the cost of keeping your world green, safe, and prosperous. Be willing to pay more for these certifications!