Rainforest Alliance 2020 Sustainable Agriculture Standard & Supply Chain Requirements

What is it?

The Rainforest Alliance is an international non-profit organization working at the intersection of business, agriculture, and forests to make responsible business the new normal. They are building an alliance to protect forests, improve the livelihoods of farmers and forest communities, promote their human rights, and help them mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis.

The Farm Requirements and Supply Chain Requirements together form the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard. 

Both introduce several innovations, such as a contextualized package of requirements adapted to the circumstances of each certificate holder, a strengthened risk assessment to identify and manage sustainability risks and shared responsibility requirements to reward farmers for sustainable production and target investments to achieve sustainability goals.

The standard is used in more than 70 countries around the globe and focuses on coffee, cocoa, tea, bananas, and many other important commodity sectors facing urgent environmental and social challenges.

Rainforest Alliance certification helps farmers produce better crops, adapt to climate change, increase their productivity, and reduce costs. These benefits provide companies with a steady and secured supply of certified products. Sourcing Rainforest Alliance Certified products also helps businesses meet consumer expectations and safeguard their brand’s credibility.

The standard covers the following themes:

Livelihoods

• Shared Responsibility;
• Sustainability Differential and Sustainability Investments;
• Living Wage & Living Income; and,
• Boosting Productivity and Better Farm Management.

Human Rights

• Due diligence approach for social issues;
• Supporting gender equity; and,
• Inclusion of Social Requirements for High-Risk Operations Supply Chain Actors.

Climate

• Climate-smart agriculture

Forests & Biodiversity

• Biodiversity;
• Areas of High Conservation Value;
• Pesticides; and,
• Deforestation.

The standard continues to recognize the challenges that already exist from climate change and seeks to address these issues by actively promoting climate-smart agriculture while improving the resilience of farms and farming communities. The concept of climate-smart agriculture is integrated throughout the standard.

The Sustainable Agriculture Standard’s Supply Chain Requirements aim to foster transparency and responsible business practices among companies from farm to shelf.