May 7th 2024

Key updates

Comprehensive FAQ – Now LIVE! – Rainforest Alliance Certification, Assurance, and Support

This comprehensive FAQ  is to help you and your teams answer the most frequently asked questions we receive about our certification program, assurance, and traceability systems. While the answers are intended to support our markets and external-stakeholder facing teams, it can be referenced by anyone within our organisation.

Input into the FAQ was given from across the organisation, including Assurance, Regional Teams, Global Programs, Data and Tech, and Corporate Affairs. Thank you all!

If you have questions, please contact Ginny Hain.

Site information on the Public List of Certificate Holders

As of May 2nd, the public CH list on the website includes Site Name information reported for Farming and Supply Chain actors. 

This update includes some improvements where the license crops have been aggregated to a single row for better usability and has a new template appearance.

If you have any questions, please contact Andrea Valenzuela.

Coming soon: the EUDR deforestation risk assessment tool for non-certified coffee and cocoa

Exciting news! We are expanding our EUDR offering to companies sourcing non-certified coffee and cocoa! 

With this tool companies will be able to upload their farm unit geodata and generate deforestation risk assessment reports in a format accepted by the EU. This will be a paid service, in addition to our existing EUDR offering for certified coffee and cocoa, as is currently available in the RACP.

The tool will be available later this year for all coffee and cocoa companies—especially those sourcing products that aren’t Rainforest Alliance Certified. Companies are encouraged to register their interest via the web page below, to allow us to gauge interest and target the roll out once the tool is ready. You can find more information here: Coming Soon: EUDR Deforestation Risk Assessment Tool. You can read the mail that was sent out externally here. It will also soon be shared via LinkedIn and the Coffee and Cocoa newsletters.

For more information, please connect with Kevin Lardner en Charlotte Masselot.

Events

Cocoa workshop held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

On April 3rd, a Cote d’Ivoire cocoa stakeholders’ meeting was held, at NOOM Hotel Abidjan. 

This 1-day workshop was an excellent opportunity to connect with the stakeholders of cocoa sector in Cote d'Ivoire and openly discuss with them about the certification related challenges (certification cycle and timelines, farm certificate holders’ preparedness and audit capacity of certification bodies)and perspectives. The session also included presentations on RA - EUDR benchmark, the intervention of the certification partner support, member monitoring and assurance providers oversight teams in Cote d’Ivoire and on the Farm intelligence app tool. At the end of the session, several proposals were collected to facilitate the next audit season.

For more informaiton please connect with Zénab Diarrassouba

Tea Policy Kenya Calibration

The policy for tea certification in Kenya was published on 1st January 2024, to address certificate holder concerns on the interpretation of some farm standard requirements in the Kenyan context.

The calibration event was held on 19th April 2024, for certificate holders and certification bodies to:

• understand the purpose of the tea policy document
• identify their interpretation of the standard requirements and verification during the audit process 
• discuss on areas of improvement on the tea policy

There were 43 participants in attendance, and insightful feedback was shared on the tea policy. Participants expressed appreciation for the policy especially in clarification and interpretation of the standard requirements.

Certification Media Coverage

EUDR Media Push

On May 2^nd, the media team issued a press release celebrating the first certificate holder set to ship EUDR-ready coffee with support from the Rainforest Alliance. Additionally, we have maintained ongoing engagement with relevant journalists regarding EUDR, which has resulted in Rainforest Alliance quotes being featured in ENDS REPORT, Mongabay, and Politico.

Links to published material:

• Press release: https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/press-releases/first-eudr-ready-coffee-bound-for-europe/

Recent EUDR media coverage:

• Is industry ready for the EU Deforestation Regulation? (endseurope.com)
• EU law to reduce deforestation is on a knife's edge, will leaders act? (commentary) (mongabay.com)

For more information on the media push, check in with our Global Media Relations Manager: Darla van Hoorn