Day 24: Rainforest Alliance vs Fairtrade

Finally I’m starting – STARTING – to look at labels. Including my vegan ice-cream, which came with its own Rainforest Alliance logo. But what does that mean?

If you’re like me, you’ll know that both Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade do something to protect some places, and maybe some people. But it seems in some situations (Nestle, for example) the differences between them practically lead to all-out-war.

So here’s the lowdown.

Fairtrade support smallholder farms, ensuring a minimum wage and part-ownership. It is involved in climate change mitigation, including with Fairtrade schools, and aims to bring people out of poverty (or does it keep people in poverty by investing in smallholders instead of large scale business? – you decide). The products are traceable, but only has to be 20% Fairtrade to get the mark.

Rainforest Alliance aims to halt deforestation and improve sustainability through teaching farmers and companies how to farm sustainably. It *encourages* companies to pay extra to farmers and to support their workers’ livelihoods. Mostly, 90-100% of the product sourced must be certified. However, standards for workers are not so stringently enforced as Fairtrade.

Palm oil = 30%….

But their newest plan is to source palm oil from smallholders in the best growing areas. They say this will reduce deforestation – but wait, I thought their focus was halting deforestation altogether where they work? 

And their palm oil certification programme has been phased out; instead, accountability and «social and market forces» – that is, transparent supply chains and business responses.

As for Fairtrade palm oil – they have developed partnerships to enable this, but only with a couple of organisations. One of these, however, is FairPalm. And that will be my next post.

https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Policy-for-Palm-Certification-Phase-out.pdf

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/palm-oil

https://www.traidcraftshop.co.uk/sustainable-palm-oil