Category: Rainforest Alliance Page 2 of 3

A frequently heard complaint about Rainforest Alliance is that they allow their seal on coffee that contains as little as 30% RA-certified beans. I understand RA’s rationale: that for a very large roaster to source 30% of many tons of coffee has an arguably larger impact than a small company sourcing 100% of a half ton, and allowing less-than-total content gets big corporations to the table. But while the percentage of certified content has to be specified on the label, many consumers, roasters, and coffee professionals I’ve talked to think that the ”30% rule” tarnishes a great certification, confuses or misleads consumers, and indicates too much concession to corporate interests.

The mantra from RA has always been that these “30 percenters” must continue to increase the amount they source. For instance, the RA blog says, “We are committed to ensuring that companies scale up their commitments… If a mainstream brand begins … by sourcing, say, 40 percent of its coffee from certified farms, that brand must agree to source increasing quantities from certified farms as they become available.”

Alas, that does not seem to have happened in practice, with the most glaring example being Kraft’s Yuban coffee, still at 30% since it began using RA beans in 2006. (A very notable exception is Caribou Coffee, which has increased the number of offerings that include RA certified beans and the percentage in those offerings. In 2006, their stated goal was having every one of their coffees 100% RA certified by the end of 2011; they are currently on track to meet the goal.)

The problem has been, apparently, that the actual rules do not seem to be specific enough. RA’s “Use of Seal” Guidelines dated December 2007 states that “Companies requesting to use the RAC seal on single-ingredient products with less than 90% certified content should also agree to a SmartSourceTM plan: a step-wise approach to scaling up the percentage of certified content over time with specific benchmarks and timelines along the path of sustainability.”

This is due to change with the next update of the Use of Seal Guidelines. Any company that offers a coffee that does not contain 100% certified beans will be required to scale up the amount at least 15% a year until the content reaches 100% certified beans. I thought this might mean 15% of the current certified content per year (e.g., from 30% to 34.5% to 39.7%, etc.), at which rate Yuban would not be 100% until I was past retirement age in 2020 or so. However, I confirmed with Alex Morgan, RA’s U.S. Manager of Sustainable Agriculture, that this meant 15% of 100 (30% to 45%, etc.).  This is a significant, meaningful, and important milestone, in my opinion.

This rule will apply not just to coffee, but other products using the seal, such as cocoa. Thus it is taking awhile to implement to accommodate varying production methods associated with different products, but the update should take place sooner rather than later. It’s my understanding not every partner is thrilled with this change, and it will be interesting to see if anybody drops the certification. My guess is that it would be pretty awkward for a player like Kraft to quit Rainforest Alliance after touting their involvement for years. We will see which big companies are actually committed to sustainable sourcing, and which may have been using RA certification to greenwash via token sourcing.

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

The State of Sustainability Initiatives Review 2010: Sustainability and Transparency was issued by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in conjunction with other partners and collaborators. It compares characteristics and provides market trends for ten “voluntary sustainability initiatives” in the forestry, coffee, tea, cocoa and banana sectors. These include the familiar coffee certification schemes of Rainforest Alliance, Utz Certified, organic, and Fair Trade. Also included is 4C Code of Conduct compliant coffee, the bottom rung of coffee production standards (you can read more about them in this post).

The Review reports that as of 2009, there were 457,756 metric tons of sustainable coffee sold in the world, or about 8% of global exports. Below this is depicted graphically. The “private sustainability initiatives” are Starbucks CAFE Practices and the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Program.

The document goes on to note, however, that the supply of sustainable coffee is actually 17% of global production (1,243,257 metric tons).

Due to a variety of factors related to variations in quality, the timing of demand, and the additional licensing, marketing and product costs associated with carrying compliant or certified coffee through the supply chain as sustainable coffee, more sustainable coffee is produced than is actually sold as sustainable.

This situation is not new, and has puzzled me for some time, at least in the context of why large corporate coffee roasters, like Kraft and NestlÁ©, don’t increase the amount of sustainably-grown coffee they buy.  A perennial sore spot among many sustainable coffee proponents and Rainforest Alliance, for instance, is that there doesn’t seem to be any increase in the proportion of certified beans in corporate-owned coffee brands; they sit at the minimum of 30% certified beans. The explanation I usually hear is that there isn’t enough supply for that proportion to grow, yet it appears that there is (see more here). Perhaps I’m missing something.

Although, as the report points out, just the act of producing coffee in a sustainable manner has positive impacts in growing communities, without the added benefits of enhanced income and/or access to markets, there is less incentive for farmers to utilize these methods.  Presumably, a chunk of the onus is on the consumer to be willing to seek out and pay more for this coffee. I’ve flogged that pony before (here for example).

Market share information was provided for the past five years, although not every scheme has been around that long. For those in coffee that have existed at least four years, Rainforest Alliance had the highest annual growth rate at 64%, with both Utz and Fair Trade at 30%.

Speaking of Rainforest Alliance, there was this graph breaking down certified area by country. There were similar graphs for Utz Certified (top three producers were Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia) and Fair Trade (Peru, Colombia, and Brazil); organic and 4C coffees were only broken down regionally. It would be interesting to see these reconfigured as percent of each country’s production.

There was also a wealth of data on other aspects such as certification costs and premiums to growers. There were detailed comparisons of and various characteristics including income sources, chain of custody methods, and governance (the charts on page 39 showing board representation by stakeholder and geographic region was quite an eye-opener).

In an upcoming post I’ll look at similar data from another perspective: how much of this sustainably-grown, certified coffee is purchased by the each of the world’s top ten major coffee buyers.

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.

In December, I reported on the 2008 global market statistics for Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC)  Bird-Friendly-certified coffee. For the 2007-2008 crop year, 2700 metric tons (6 million pounds) of Bird-Friendly certified coffee was produced. This certification is at the farm level, with 1400 farms and 5000 ha (12,000 acres) under certification.

At the time, comparable numbers for Rainforest Alliance (RA)-certified coffee for 2008 totaled 62,296 metric tons (137 million pounds), up from around 40,000 metric tons (89 million pounds) in late 2007. As of late 2007, RA had 200,000 ha of coffee on nearly 17,000 farms.

Farmers typically receive a price premium of 5 to 10 cents per pound of Bird-Friendly-certified coffee on top of the premium they receive from their organic certification (a requirement for Bird-Friendly certification).

RA has announced figures for 2009. Production of RA-certified coffee was 168,114 metric tones (370 million pounds), an increase of 36% from 2008.  As of December 2009, there were 27,610 Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee farms around the world with 305,383 ha (754,618 acres) of land under certification (not all in production…this represents all the land on certified farms). I believe this represents 22 countries. Nine were added this year including India, Kenya, Uganda, the United States, Vietnam and Zambia.

Note that production volumes do not mean all the coffee grown under certified conditions was sold as such. Certified coffee may be blended with non-certified coffee, or the buyer may be interested in other attributes besides the certification and purchases it without intending to market it as certified, to give just a couple of examples.

However, RA indicated that their sales of certified beans grew by 41% in 2009, and that since 2003, the supply of RA-certified coffee has grown by an average of 64% annually with sales increasing by an average of 77% a year over the same period.

RA states that farmers receive an average price premium of $0.11 per pound of coffee.

My post, “When is 100% not 100%“? — regarding the amount of non-certified beans allowed in 100% Rainforest Alliance certified coffee — generated a lot of interest. Rainforest Alliance posted a comment, to which I replied. RA responded to my questions, and a Fair Trade representative (from TransFair USA) also chimed in, clarifying their position.

Now I’d like to post the comments of Bob Rice from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC), the developer and guardian of Bird-Friendly certified coffee:

There seem to be two issues here regarding product purity: one with purity at origin and in manufacturing; the other with reduced percentages for marketing purposes that are stated on the package or end product.

I can certainly appreciate Abby’s statement about wanting to be honest with respect to the consumers. And I agree that there are situations or organizations with which the 100% stipulation could be difficult to meet. But this, to me, instead of accepting and allowing a more relaxed standard for product purity, is all the more reason to insist upon 100% purity along with a strictly controlled audit trail.

No one I know necessarily expects fraud along the chain, but history is a stern teacher. We know from recent years that cooperatives (and estate farms, too, most likely) have sent off quantities of “certified” organic coffee that far exceeded the production capabilities of the organization. The rule for organic was 100% purity–at least at the farm gate–and there are cases in which a coop lost its organic certification and the director lost all credibility with the coffee industry. A more notorious and egregious case occurred at the consumption end with “Kona” coffee in California, where Panamanian beans were re-packed as Hawaiian. Someone went to jail on that. Where money is concerned, it’s a challenge that we all confront with certified coffees. But there are also ways to address such behavior, such as sanctions, suspensions or expulsion.

Like organic and fair trade, SMBC has a audit trail and rules about separation of BF product that get addressed via inspection. While no one would claim such systems are fool-proof, a stated purity of 100% works to encourage the best efforts at keeping the “all or nothing” standard intact for all concerned, and realizing it as best as possible at the consumption end.

Stating up front that you’re going to allow 90% purity to leave the farm and allow that to be considered 100% can only work against you in the long run. If you’re expecting 10% “leakage”, then you may well get that much leakage on your 90% rule–and perhaps even more, given that those at origin know you’re not expecting 100%. It simply puts you in a difficult position from the start.

RA’s allowance for different percentages of the final product (i.e., Holiday Inn’s coffee carafes with the 30% RA certified labeling) is altogether another matter and is understandable from the marketing and getting-the-word-out perspective. SMBC doesn’t allow it, but we understand the reasoning behind it. But such statements on end-consumer packaging–where assumptions by consumers are made about what a certification mark implies–are distinct from the leakage allowance at origin/manufacturing/packaging.

As Julie stated in her blog, if only 90% is the purity level at origin and then again at manufacturing, a consumer could well be drinking a “certified” product that is only 81% pure. And if that is then used to create an acknowledged 30% certified coffee, you’re down to less than a quarter of the product being certified.

Our feeling is that if a certification mark is going to represent whatever it is that it states it represents, then strict standards and enforcement need to in place. In discussing this issue with many people, I’ve found that those who are concerned about environmental and/or social issues and look for such seals expect nothing short of 100% purity. We would all do well to work toward that high-water mark. By holding everyone along the commodity chain to the highest standards possible can we create reliable, credible coffee products that we can truly say link conservation to the market place.