How Ethical is my Tea??? (Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade)

There are two major ethical certifications for tea in the UK, Fairtrade and the Rainforest Alliance, but how do they measure up against one another and how ethical are they?

Well if you look at the standards used for the Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade, you will notice that there are some areas of overlap, but they both approach the issue of ethical products from different angles.

The Fairtrade Angle

Fairtrade approaches ethics from the angle of getting a fair deal for the farmers and tries to reverse the unfair nature of the current trading system. It guarantees a minimum price for the products, as well as an extra premium that must be invested in social, economic or environmental development projects. Fairtrade also offers crop pre-financing, which frees farmers from loan sharks in countries where lending infrastructure is poor, collapsed or corrupt.

Basically Fairtrade is people focused and aims to help farmers trade their way out of poverty, to be Fairtrade, producers and traders, must be organised as democratic and transparent groups and able to demonstrate how Fairtrade will provide social, economic and environmental benefits for both the producers and their community. Fairtrade certification is also dependent on a strict set of 10 ILO conventions, including the right to association & collective bargaining. Fairtrade does tend to focus on smaller individually owned or co-operatively organised farms, it does certify some larger plantations for tea and bananas, but is mostly focused on the smaller side of things.

With Fairtrade, it is the products that is certified and in any certified product the ingredients that can be Fairtrade, must be 100% Fairtrade, and there is also a licensing fee for using the label, which ranges from 0.1% to 2%.

On the environmental side, benefits arise because the worst pesticides are forbidden in the interests of workers health, and as current crops are finically viable, there is no incentive to try and increase production, thereby reducing deforestation. In all fairness just because something is Fairtrade doesn’t make it defiantly environmentally ethically, a good example of this is KitKat, whilst it now uses Fairtrade chocolate and sugar, it does use palm oil from unsustainable sources, something that Greenpeace has been very active in pointing out recently.

The Rainforest Alliance Angle

The Rainforest Alliance approach the issue from the angle of sustainability and environmental protection, there is no aim to redress the trading system. It has very tight environmental standards compared to Fairtrade.

In order for a farm to get certified, they must conserve the local environment, paying attention to the ecosystem, water usage, waste management, and wildlife protection. Rainforest Alliance tend to focus on larger single owner estate farms.

On workers rights they have cherry picked what they call “critical” ILO conventions which producers must adhere to, which do not include the right to association & collective bargaining. And even then they must only meet those critical criteria by 50%.

The Rainforest Alliance certify farms and plantations, not products, so where you see the Rainforest Alliance seal on a product, as little as 30% of a single ingredient may be certified, there is also no fee for placing the seal on a product. But as I point out only a single ingredient needs to be certified, take Galaxy chocolate, which now uses Rainforest Alliance certified chocolate, but, just like KitKat, uses unsustainable palm oil. Personally I find that absolutely ridiculous as you would expect a product carrying a seal certifying sustainability, you would expect all of its ingredients to be sustainable, so frankly I think this is far far worse than the KitKat situation. I did ask Greenpeace what their stance on Galaxy’s use of palm oil was, the response was a deathly silence, something I think I need to look into further.

There is no crop pre-financing available at all, and the Rainforest Alliance claims that as a side effect the price paid for certified crops will increase as a result of being better quality and sustainable.

Who Monitors the Standards?

I am going to come out and say, that in my personal opinion, the Rainforest Alliance is a much weaker standard, and when it comes to monitoring the standards, that’s where is all gets very murky.

The standards for Fairtrade are set by a group call the Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International (FLO), which is split into two independent bodies, FLO International, which sets the standards and FLO-CERT the inspection and certification body.

FLO-CERT has received ISO 65 accreditation, which put into English means that it is, independent and transparent and free from external pressure. So we can say we a degree of certainty that when it says its 100% guaranteed Fairtrade, we can take that at face value.

The standards for the Rainforest Alliance are set by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) made up of the Rainforest Alliance and a handful of other very small conservationist groups, mostly based in South America. Guess who is the secretariat of SAN, yep the Rainforest Alliance, who are able to coordinate the development and review of SANs standards. So who is the monitoring body for SAN, well its SAN itself, they monitor themselves, SAN members hire the inspectors directly, but certification costs for producers are reduced if they provided travel expenses, board and meals for the inspectors. There is also the problem that the Rainforest Alliance depends on inspection fees, some 36% of their budget is made up of this. Meaning that there is a disincentive to decertify farms in case it adversely affects the budget too much.

I am not saying its corrupt, but its clear to see that the Rainforest Alliance monitoring process is extremely weak and is open to external influences and potentially corruption. The situation is a bit silly really I mean if you were to Google SAN looking for their homepage, you might be surprised to see they don’t have one, they have a section on the Rainforest Alliances website instead, showing exactly how poor this monitoring system actually is. Essentially SAN and the Rainforest Alliance are one and the same, the other groups involved in SAN are as small as two man operations, and do not have the clout to be able to challenge the Rainforest Alliance.

So Is the Rainforest Alliance Corrupt?

The answer to that one is, I don’t know, I don’t think they are institutionally corrupt, but none the less I am worried. Its clear that the system is open to corruption, but I do believe that the people running the Rainforest Alliance have the best intentions. A real worrying aspect for me is that they have unintentionally allowed themselves to become a greenwashing front for large corporations.

While the manufacturers of end products do not have to pay a fee to use the seal, they are free to donate to the Rainforest Alliance, some 46% of its budget is made up of donations from corporations, governments and foundations. Whilst the exact amount coming from corporations is unknown this is the largest category in their revenue. These donations come from the likes of Kraft, Mars, Unilever, McDonalds and Chiquita. So the Rainforest Alliance have a financely disincentive to take any course of action that may harm these large corporate donors. It is interesting to note that prior to Galaxy becoming “sustainable”, Mars donated in excess of $100,000 to the Rainforest Alliance, we don’t know exactly how much as neither organisation will confirm how much it was.

Why Are So Many Large Companies Using Rainforest Alliance Products?

Well its a case of the corporations know that we consumers are becoming more ethically aware, and they want to tap into that market, but in a “cost-neutral” way. Because Rainforest Alliance crops are significantly cheaper than Fairtrade, due to the lack of a minimum price guarantee and absence of a social premium, they tend to go for Rainforest Alliance certification.

Now these corporations must be hoping that we won’t do our homework, and assume its the same thing, my baby brother is a manager for McDonalds, and when I last saw him, we briefly spoke about Fairtrade. He told me, that McDonalds coffee was good because its Fairtrade, when I explained that it wasn’t it was Rainforest Alliance certified instead, he was a bit confused as he was under the impression that they were the same thing.

This is the same assumption that the other large corporations must be hoping the rest of us make. Their logic goes like this: if we put a ‘sustainable’ label on our package, customers will be satisfied, so let’s choose the cheapest. What do customers know about different certification standards?

These large corporations have become very defensive of the Rainforest Alliance, like they are protecting their investment, indeed if you Google “criticisms of of the Rainforest Alliance” or “Fairtrade vs. Rainforest Alliance”, almost any article you find that allows for comments you will find comments by Michiel Leijnse (a Unilever marketing executive), Abby Ray (Rainforest Alliances communications associate)and Stuart Singleton-White (A communications director for the Rainforest Alliance) in particular, all advocating the Rainforest Alliance, pointing out that like the FLO, its a member if ISEAL (always pointing out that ISEAL is the “de facto gold standard in certification”), but not really responding to the real criticisms. They tend to flood the comments, in the hope that they can make their scheme look like an equal to Fairtrade, when clearly they are not.

They are extremely quick are tracking down any criticism of the Rainforest Alliance, there is a very good post here at The Chocolate Life, where you can see this in action. This article has actually been republished on quite a number of sites, and the fists comments from the Rainforest Alliances supporters are usually disparaging comments about the character of the author. Admittedly in her first reply to Abby Ray she is a bit tetchy, but she does have a point, there does appear to be an awful lot of money spent on PR management for the Rainforest Alliance.

What is interesting to note it that there is almost no support for the Rainforest Alliance at the grassroots whatsoever, I asked a few people organising the Newcastle Green Festival, what they thought of the Rainforest Alliance. I can’t repeat the responses as they were mostly full of swearing, but needless to say they would be more likely to protest/boycott the Rainforest Alliance than ever support it!

What About My Tea?

Ok so how ethical is the tea then, well lets take two boxes of 80 tea bags, one from a Rainforest Alliance certified brand, and one from a Fairtrade brand, lets say Yorkshire Tea and Cafe Direct Everyday. I even took some photos to help demonstrate my point.

In a pack of 80, Cafe Direct Everyday Fairtrade teabags, 100% of the teabags are guaranteed to be Fairtrade, so when you buy it you have 80 ethical teabags.

In a pack of 80, Yorkshire Tea, teabags, only 30% will be Rainforest Alliance certified, so you will only have 24 “ethical” teabags.

But they only need to be 50% in compliance of the “critical” criteria's, so if we average it out, only 50% of the "ethical” teabags in a box of 80 Yorkshire Tea teabags will be free of child labour, harmful pesticides and wasteful water use, leavening you with 12 “ethical” teabags.

Now in all fairness if we used PG Tips, which are 100% Rainforest Alliance certified now, there would be 40 “ethical” teabags. The Rainforest Alliance say that if a large corporation like Kraft are buying 30% of their coffee sustainable, it will have a big impact, well that’s true, but lets be perfectly honest here, its a cop out. Are we to assume that the remaining 70% was produced by child labourers, using extremely harmful pesticides, whilst chopping down the rainforest?

12 out of 80, that really is shocking.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

I think personally, that the Rainforest Alliance is here with us to stay, but it needs to work hard to gain the confidence of the ethically minded consumer. Here is how I think they might be able to achieve that.

1. Sort out SAN, make it truly independent, model it on the FLO, and start working towards ISO 65 accreditations, then we might believe in the standards to begin with.
2. Start charging a licensing fee to use the Rainforest Alliance seal, thus reducing dependence on corporate donors. People see the Rainforest Alliance as being under the thumb of corporations like Kraft, that really needs to change for you to become effective.
3. Insist on 100% of ingredients being sustainable prior to being able to use of the seal, ok, maybe give them lets say a two year period of grace, where they can say they are working towards certification.
4. Work with FLO on improving workers rights standards, and assist FLO on improving their environmental standards.

But I honestly don’t think this will happen, the Rainforest Alliance, have seemingly made a deal with the devil and now may not be able to get turn things around. I just want to point out I am not anti-multinationals, in some ways I think they can be good, take Michiel Leijnse at Unilever, he was involved in the launch of Ben & Jerry’s (a Unilever owned company) first Fairtrade ice cream, and now Ben and Jerry’s are going 100% Fairtrade. I am sure Mr Leijnse and Unilever have the best intensions after all they got PG Tips 100% Rainforest Alliance certified extremely quickly, but we as consumers need to vote with our wallets and show them that we want certifications we can rely on, not greenwashing. If they want their products to be sustainable, then they can use their financial leverage over the Rainforest Alliance to make them change for good.

During Fairtrade fortnight I had the opportunity to speak with a Fairtrade banana grower from the Windward Isles, I had hoped to try and convince him to come to my Fairtrade event at the Newcastle Bahá’í Centre, but things didn’t work out timing wise. Anyway he basically said that as Rainforest Alliance bananas sell more and the certified farms tend to be owned by large companies, he fears that Fairtrade producers may be run out of business as consumers turn to Rainforest Alliance bananas as they are cheaper and allegedly ethical as well. I can honestly say he was extremely fearful about the situation, how justified his fears are, I don’t know.

At the end of the day I truly believe in my heat that the Rainforest Alliance have good intentions, but then again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

God Bless

Michael