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IR/PS CSR Case 07-07

Examining the Rainforest Alliance’s
Agricultural Certification Robustness

By: Feliz Ventura

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND PACIFIC STUDIESUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Prepared for Professor Peter Gourevitch
Edited by Jennifer Cheng, MPIA 2008
Corporate Social Responsibility
Winter 2007

Abstract:
This paper explores the structure and processes that govern the Rainforest Alliance’s certified
seal of approval to give insight to the robustness of the Rainforest Alliance certification system.
This paper assesses the robustness of the certification by examining the incentives facing
certifiers to determine whether certifiers qualify as independent, third parties. Because there isevidence that certifiers’ incentives are aligned with those being certified or retail purchasers insome circumstances, it is impossible to classify the Rainforest Alliance certification process as
robust even despite criteria for certification that are scientifically and socially commendable.

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Table of Contents
I. Introduction...........................................................................................................................3
II. History of the Rainforest Alliance and the Certified Seal of Approval.............................3
III. Certification Structure: Standards and Standard Creation ............................................5
IV. Certification Process..........................................................................................................8
V. Independent Third Party Certification? ............................................................................9
A. Rainforest Alliance ...........................................................................................................10
B. Sustainable Agriculture Network ......................................................................................12
C. Local Contractors.............................................................................................................14
VI. Case Study: Chiquita Banana Farm Certification .........................................................15
VII. Trust Without Verification? ..........................................................................................17
VIII. Discussion Questions......................................................................................................18
IX. Endnotes............................................................................................................................20

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I. Introduction
This paper explores the structure and processes that govern the Rainforest Alliance’s
certified seal of approval to give insight to the robustness of the Rainforest Alliance certification
system. This paper assesses the robustness of the certification by examining the incentives
facing certifiers to determine whether certifiers qualify as independent, third parties. Because
there is evidence that certifiers’ incentives are aligned with those being certified or retailpurchasers in some circumstances, it is impossible to classify the Rainforest Alliancecertification process as robust even despite criteria for certification that are scientifically andsocially commendable.
II. History of the Rainforest Alliance and the Certified Seal of Approval
The Rainforest Alliance is a non-profit organization headquartered in New York. It was
founded twenty years ago in 1987 with a mission to “conserve biodiversity and ensuresustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer
behavior.”i The organization carries out a wide variety programs in support of its mission,
including activities such as communication workshops for environmental groups, maintaining an
online encyclopedia of conservation projects across the globe, providing research fellowships
and awarding grants to environmentally friendly businesses.
The Rainforest Alliance also has certification programs for tourism, forest products andagriculture to reduce the environmental impact of these activities and in some cases, support its
regional conservation activities. Farms cultivating coffee, bananas, cocoa, citrus, ferns and cut
flowers were selected as certification targets of the Alliance because these crops are often grownin areas previously occupied by biologically diverse, tropical forests. The Alliance began its

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certification program “to minimize the environmental impacts and maximize the social benefitsof tropical agriculture” to support both conservation and sustainable development.ii

Figure 1: Rainforest Alliance Certified Seal of Approval

Some retail purchasers have favored Rainforest Alliance certified products over products
bearing other agricultural certifications, such as Fair Trade. In the case of these two label
competitors, the major difference is that no guaranteed price premium is provided by Rainforest
Alliance certification even though both are comprised of social and environmental guidelines.
While a price premium is not guaranteed as it is in the Fair Trade model, farmers usually do
receive a price premium for goods bearing the Rainforest Alliance Seal of Approval because theseal is associated with a higher quality product. Despite paying a price premium for higher
quality products, “the Rainforest Alliance certification is likely to be cheaper for the buying
company,”iii especially if coffee prices remain low as they have been in recent years.
This price advantage has led cost-conscious, high volume purchasers to commit topurchasing Rainforest Alliance certified agricultural products. Major corporations such as Kraft,
McDonald’s, Caribou Coffee, Nestle, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Johnson&Johnson and KLM
Airlines have purchasing commitments for the Alliance’s certified agricultural products, withmost of these companies primarily purchasing coffee from certified farms. The Rainforest
Alliance has used its partnerships with large corporations to drive sales of certified agricultural

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products, and has been relatively successful as its certified bananas now comprise about 15% oftraded bananas and certified coffee has about 15% of global market share.iv

III. Certification Structure: Standards and Standard Creation
The Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) in conjunction with Rainforest Alliance,
which serves as the Secretariat for SAN, sets certification standards for the seal of approval thatconsist of a basic set of farm criteria with an additional crop-specific set of criteria.
SAN was founded as the Conservation Agriculture Network in 1991, and seeks “totransform the environmental and social conditions of tropical agriculture through theimplementation of sustainable farming practices.” v SAN partnered with the Rainforest Allianceto manage the certification process at the local level, which would be difficult for the Rainforest
Alliance without opening offices in every country where it intends to certify farms. SAN, aside
from the Rainforest Alliance, is currently composed of ten environmental organizations locatedin Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
and Mexico.

Conservación y Desarrollo (Ecuador), Fundación Interamericana deInvestigación Tropical (Guatemala), Imaflora(Brazil), Instituto para la
Cooperación y Autodesarrollo (Honduras), Fundación
Natura(Colombia), Nepenthes(Denmark), Pronatura Chiapas(Mexico),
SalvaNATURA(El Salvador), Toledo Institute for Development and theEnvironment(Belize), The Rainforest Alliance (United States and Costa
Rica)

Figure 2: Sustainable Agriculture Network Members

Although SAN is a separate organization from the Rainforest Alliance, it does not appear
to have much independence from the Alliance because all SAN documents are circulated fromthe Rainforest Alliance web site and there is little other organizational presence in print media,

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electronic media or academic publications. In addition, it appears that SAN would be unlikely toexist without the Rainforest Alliance since there is no evidence of connections between the localorganizations themselves, and instead are linked to each other only indirectly though the hub of
the Rainforest Alliance.
Though the role of the Rainforest Alliance as the SAN secretariat is to provide
administrative support to its member organizations, the Alliance appears to go much further thanthat to use SAN in a manner more similar to a contracting network for certification. In this way,
it appears that SAN is an organization that exists to serve the Rainforest Alliance’s interests,
rather than an interest-based coalition whose activities are complimentary to the Rainforest
Alliance’s activities.
The criteria developed by SAN and the Rainforest Alliance are based on the principles ofenvironmental protection, human welfare and economic viability. These principles were selected
to ensure that certified agriculture fosters sustainable development. Upon meeting at least thecritical criteria for certification under each of the ten SAN principles, a farm is deemed“sustainable” and is allowed to use the seal of approval for marketing purposes on all of thegoods that are produced by the farm.

Sustainable Agriculture Network’s 10 Certification Principles:
1. Social and Environmental Management System.
2. Ecosystem Conservation.
3. Wildlife Protection.
4. Water Conservation.
5. Fair Treatment and Good Working Conditions for Workers.
6. Occupational Health and Safety.
7. Community Relations.
8. Integrated Crop Management.

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9. Soil Management and Conservation.
10. Integrated Waste Management.

Figure 3: SAN Certification Principles
By the beginning of 2007, more than 10,000 farms in fourteen developing countries
covering 530,000 acres have been certified by the Rainforest Alliance.vi One of the Alliance’s
highest profile certification targets, Chiquita Brands International, Inc., had all of its farms in
Latin America certified by the Alliance in 2002 as well as some of its subsidiaries’ farms.
The most recent edition of the standards, which are publicly available at the Rainforest
Alliance’s web site,vii were “developed with active stakeholder involvement through a public
consultation process”viii by Alliance and SAN members. Though documentation of the actual
stakeholder consultation was difficult to find, and was only found in a Spanish-language
versionix, the consultation process transparently detailed in “Resumen de la Consulta Pública:
Norma para Agricultura Sostenible – Red de Agricultura Sostenible.” The consultation steps areclearly laid out, the text of the requests for participation is provided as well as the comments thatwere received, but the identities of parties whose opinions were solicited are not publicly listed
nor are the identities of those who commented revealed.
This is a clear liability for the strength of the seal of approval since the parties who areshaping the criteria may have an interest in bending them for their own benefit, and perhaps at
the expense of the certification’s stated goal of providing a “seal of approval guaranteeing
consumers that the products they are buying are the result of practices carried out according to a
specific set of criteria balancing ecological, economic and social considerations.”x The failure to
identify the parties who participated in the consultation process undermines the goal of public
consultation—to generate publicly credible criteria, though some credibility may be derived from

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the Alliance’s involvement with the International Social and Environmental Accreditation andLabeling Alliance (ISEAL) depending on the robustness of that organization’s processes.
Even if the identities of the participants were made public, a conflict of interest would
remain in the standard creation process. This conflict arises from allowing those who will beaffected by the standards to shape them, which creates an opportunity for stakeholders to set
standards that are favorable to their own interests. Although standards influenced by those whowill be subject to them does not necessarily result in a corrupt standard, standards that are
created without a conflict of interest will inspire more consumer confidence and provide thebasis for a robust certification.
IV. Certification Process
The actual certification process is the responsibility of the SAN member in the field. If
the SAN member in that country does not have sufficient staff to inspect the farms in thatcountry itself, it has the option to hire local certifiers to assist in the inspection process.
The inspection process begins with a preliminary farm inspection performed either by
SAN employees or contracted local certifiers to create a work plan for bringing the farm into
compliance with the certification criteria, and are later inspected again at the owner’s request by
a local certification team, which writes a report about the farm’s suitability for certification.
Farms can elect to bypass the preliminary inspection, and larger farms that have fewer concerns
about the cost of complying with the certification criteria often do bypass this inspection.
If a preliminary inspection is conducted and the SAN committee agrees that the farm is asuitable candidate for certification, an inspection for certification is conducted. To achievecertification, a farm must meet critical criteria in every principle group, at least fifty percent of
criteria in every principle group and eighty percent of all certification criteria.

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SAN rules state that farms must be inspected at least ever year, and are required toprogressively increase their compliance levels with the certification criteria to maintain farm
certification. Though SAN does reserve the right to make unannounced visits to certified
farms,xi no evidence was found that indicated any surprise inspections had been conducted. The
lack of surprise inspections may mean that SAN has not observed any farms under normal
operational conditions.
Farms being certified are usually responsible for the initial certification costs, butorganizations such as non-governmental organizations and companies have made donations tocover the costs of farm certification. In addition to the initial certification costs, farms are
required to pay an annual fee for certification that is based on the number of hectares the farmcultivates.
After certification is complete, the farm is entitled to use the Rainforest Alliance certified
seal of approval on the products that the farm produces, including those that are outside thevariety of crops for which the Alliance has additional certification criteria. The Rainforest
Alliance also publicizes the names of the certified companies on its web site as a marketing
technique that may result in the farm obtaining purchasing contracts, and provides links toretailers who sell its certified agricultural products.

V. Independent Third Party Certification?
Examination of the mechanisms for certification, rather than the criteria for certification,is essential because it indicates the certifier’s ability to hold those being certified to thecertification criteria. Third party status is important because certifiers are only credible when
they can claim that their incentives are not synchronized with the incentives of those who they

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are certifying, and in this case, also maintain independence from the purchasers of the certified
products. The Rainforest Alliance is clearly aware that it must be perceived as having the ability
to be independent from the interests of the producers and corporate buyers of its certified
products for its certification to be credible, and states that it defines certification as an act thatmust be performed by an “independent, third-party.”xii
However, upon examining the incentives of three major actors in the Rainforest Alliancecertification process—the Rainforest Alliance itself, Sustainable Agriculture Network membersin the field, and the local certifiers—a number of weaknesses in the process are evident thatleave the third party status of all actors involved in the certification process in doubt.

A. Rainforest Alliance
Because the Rainforest Alliance’s interests are intertwined with those of its corporate
buyers as well as the farms to which it lends its seal of approval, the Alliance’s ability to be an
independent certification organization has been compromised. As a result, it fails to meet thedefinition of a third-party, which has the effect of decreasing the robustness of its certification
regime.
First, the Rainforest Alliance must ensure that there are enough certified products tofulfill the publicly declared, and often much hyped, purchasing commitments of corporate
buyers. The term corporate buyer refers to companies who have made commitments to the
Alliance to purchase certified agricultural products, examples of which are Kraft and Caribou
Coffee who committed to purchasing Alliance certified coffee.
These corporate partnerships create a conflict of interest for the Rainforest Alliancebecause the Alliance will have incentives to encourage SAN members to be less thorough in theCopyright 2007. No quotation or citation without attribution.
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certification process to ensure supply and avoid embarrassing its corporate purchasers by
preventing them from meeting their purchasing commitments. Corporate purchasers could beembarrassed by a lack of supply if enough farms are not certified to meet these purchasing
commitments, and they are accused of misleading their customers about the origin of theiragricultural products.
A further challenge to the Alliance’s autonomy from its corporate purchasers is the factthat it does accept contributions from the purchasers, and 46% of its budget is comprised of
donations from companies, foundations and government. It is unclear what amount of thatpercentage is from corporations, but this category is the single largest category of the budget.xiii
The Alliance accepts corporate support in the form of cash contributions, program sponsorship,
licensing agreements and in-kind gifts. This income structure indicates that the Rainforest
Alliance would find it difficult to take a course of action that would harm its major funders.
Finally, the Rainforest Alliance’s decision-making independence is also curtailed the by
the composition of its board. Executives from corporations that have made certified agriculture
purchasing commitments to the Alliance occupy seats on its board of directors. In addition toincreasing the Rainforest Alliance’s sensitivity to the problems posed by a shortage of certified
goods as described above, this presence may also increase the likelihood that the company will
receive positive press from the Alliance. Annemieke Wijn, a former Kraft executive involved in
the company’s coffee division, is a member of the Rainforest Alliance’s Board of Directors. In
2006, Kraft Foods, Inc. was awarded the Corporate Green Globe Award by the Rainforest
Alliance for the commitment it made to purchase Rainforest Alliance certified coffee in 2003.
The structure of the Rainforest Alliance’s relationship with the farms that it certifies is asecond source of conflict that could influence the stringency level of the certification process.

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Because the Alliance relies on fees for services such as certification for approximately 36% of its
budget,xiv this fee schedule may create incentives for the Rainforest Alliance to avoid
decertifying farms--especially those farms covering more hectares--since doing so would
decrease the Alliance’s income.

B. Sustainable Agriculture Network
SAN poses both structural and capacity challenges to the robustness of the certification
since its incentives are synchronized with the Rainforest Alliance and the smallness of some
SAN member organizations’ size may constrict their ability to conduct thorough inspections.
Given these synchronous incentives, SAN members’ position in relation to both the Alliance andfarms in their home countries creates challenges to the organization’s credibility to function as anindependent third party certifier.
SAN is lauded by the Rainforest Alliance as an ideal partner for certification because
SAN members “understand local culture, politics, language and ecology.”xv While devolving
certification to local environmental organizations may mean that Rainforest Alliance certification“costs are often lower than other systems”xvi of certification, the likelihood that SAN members
can act as independent third-parties is also lower since they are more likely to have social or
economic relationships with the owners and workers on the farms seeking certification. In
addition, the ability of a SAN member to certify a farm may be most compromised when it
inspects a farm in its own community since pre-existing relationships may make it difficult or
impossible to conduct a surprise inspection or observe genuine farm operations even during
routine certification steps.

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Another country-level certification liability is each SAN member’s ability to “adapt” thecertification criteria to suit local environmental, political, legal and traditional contexts, as well
as different types of producers. While this policy was created to ensure “the same advantages for
all producers,”xvii the process by which the criteria are adapted is completely opaque. This
process opacity serves to undermine the label’s credibility even farther than the failure to apply auniform standard does. Another fissure in the strength of the seal of approval is that the
Rainforest Alliance also refused to respond when an inquiry was made about the existence of any
oversight mechanism for the adaptations of the standards by SAN members.
SAN’s low level of independence from the Rainforest Alliance also poses a challenge toits credibility as an independent third party. The Alliance is the secretariat for the organization,
but it is also the largest, best-funded and most prestigious member of the group. Because theAlliance is a source of funding for SAN member organizations, the likelihood that a member
organization would have an interest in challenging the Alliance on any given issue is decreased,
especially for small or under funded SAN members.
Differing staff sizes and funding levels also result in a lack of uniform capacity across
SAN’s member organizations. Uniform organizational capacity is relevant to certification
robustness because its absence indicates that the ability of the member organization to inspect
and certify varies from country to country. Differing capacities means that the usefulness ofcertification as a guarantee of compliance with a set of criteria is damaged by the local SAN
member’s ability to inspect the farm with the same stringency as other, more sophisticated, SAN
members. The great amount of variation, both in terms of size and technical capabilities of thelocal SAN members, is evidenced by the professional staff members showcased on some SAN

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member web sites, while other SAN members have no web sites and are sparsely staffed by as
few as two employees.
A final obstacle to a robust certification regime is created by low organizational capacity
is that SAN members may not know what specialized knowledge to look for in locallycontracted technicians who are hired to perform inspections when the organization is unable toperform the inspection itself.

Corporate
BuyersLocal
certifiers
Farm

Local
certifiers

Rainforest
Alliance

SAN in situ
Members

Farm

Farm

Local
certifiers

Figure 4: Actor Relationship Flowchart
C. Local Contractors
Local certifiers who can be hired by SAN members to conduct certification inspections
may further decrease the social and economic distance between the certifier and the certification

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target as described in the SAN section above. While decreasing the certification costs forfarmers who pay travel expenses, lodging, and meals for certifiers, choosing the least costly
certifier may have the inadvertent effect of decreasing the overall value of the certification as athird party guarantee.
VI. Case Study: Chiquita Banana Farm Certification
Chiquita began working with the Rainforest Alliance and the Sustainable Agriculture
Network in 1992 to certify Chiquita-owned banana farms and some of its subsidiary farms in
Latin America with the Rainforest Alliance certified seal of approval. Because the company has
a long record of both environmental and worker rights violations, its partnership with theRainforest Alliance was a major shift in company practices. Chiquita’s management claims thatthe motivation for the move toward greater corporate social responsibility was triggered by its
belief that the “information revolution means there is no alternative to transparency indemonstrating corporate social responsibility,”xviii though Chiquita’s weaker market position
relative to other major banana companies during this period was probably another large factor inthis decision.
All of Chiquita’s Latin American farms were certified by the Rainforest Alliance by
2000, but after Human Rights Watch released a report criticizing Chiquita-subsidiary farms’
practices in Ecuador entitled “Tainted Harvest: Child Labor and Obstacles to Organizing on
Ecuador’s Banana Plantations” in 2002, the Rainforest Alliance came under fire for certifying
Chiquita-owned and subsidiary farms. The Human Rights Watch report detailed child labor
usage, labor rights violations and union suppression on Chiquita’s subsidiary farms in Ecuador.
These farms, belonging to Favorita Fruit Company, had been certified by the Rainforest
Alliance before the Human Rights Watch report was written, and were later re-inspected byCopyright 2007. No quotation or citation without attribution.
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Chiquita in early 2003. No violations were found during the 2003 re-inspection, though Chiquita
did acknowledge, “freedom of association remains a concern, as it is for the industry.”xix These
farms were not de-certified, and make up a significant portion of Chiquita’s purchases in theregion, as it acquires about 11% of its Latin American bananas from the Favorita Fruit
Company.xx As a result of the magnitude of the accusations from as reputable an organizationas Human Rights Watch, the Rainforest Alliance was accused of being complicit in Chiquita’s
efforts to paint itself as a responsible corporate citizen by an various members of theenvironmental and human rights communities.
Although it is doubtful that the Rainforest Alliance actually intended to assist Chiquita in“greenwashing” its corporate practices, the organization’s third-party status was compromised by
its relationship with Chiquita precisely because such a relationship was so groundbreaking.
Chiquita’s unprecedented commitment to improve its practices made it believable that the
Rainforest Alliance turned a blind eye to some farms’ problems in order to meet Chiquita’s very
public certification goals for its own farms and subsidiaries and to keep Chiquita from giving up
on the certification process. Additionally, the Rainforest Alliance had an incentive to keep
working with Chiquita, even despite obstacles, in the form of certification fees from the large
Chiquita farm acreage it would certify and the prestige that could translate into morecertifications it would receive for having reformed a company known for poor environmental
and social practices.
If Chiquita’s commitment had not been so groundbreaking, it is doubtful that the Alliancewould have been so accommodating or eager to work with Chiquita while some farms associatedwith it continued to engage in practices that violated the core principles of the certification.
Although the Rainforest Alliance’s motives for its actions in this instance cannot be known with

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absolute certainty, that the Alliance’s relationship with Chiquita did compromise its status as anindependent, third party auditor during this episode is clear from the furor over the relationshiptriggered by the Human Rights Watch report.
Another factor that may have impeded the Rainforest Alliance ability or inclination to
publicly retract support for Chiquita was the extensive media coverage that the Alliancelaunched in support of Chiquita when it announced its desire to certify its farms. It would havebeen difficult to change course when the Alliance has already taken a positive and very publicstance on the reformed Chiquita.
Though Chiquita has been transparent about the accusations and publicly acknowledged
the Human Rights Watch report, the Rainforest Alliance has no mention of the report orviolations by Favorita’s certified farms. Chiquita’s approach to this incident is related to its
status as a publicly held company. Because it is a publicly held company, it is legally obligatedto provide complete information to its stockholders and has further incentives to confront
accusations and defend its reputation before the market can punish it by placing a lower value on
Chiquita stock.
The Rainforest Alliance has no such incentives since it is a non-profit organization that
only has incentives to be transparent to its donors, its main source of income. The Rainforest
Alliance’s lack of public transparency was also illustrated during the author’s research on thisorganization when the Alliance failed to substantively respond to informational requests.
VII. Trust Without Verification?
Because the law does not bind the Rainforest Alliance to transparent practices and it also
lacks financial incentives to respond to consumers, consumer ability to verify the claims that the
Alliance makes is low. This factor, added to the structural and procedural limitations to theCopyright 2007. No quotation or citation without attribution.
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Rainforest Alliance’s ability to provide a robust certification regime, creates doubt that
agricultural products bearing Rainforest Alliance Certified Seal of Approval comply with thecertification’s criteria.
Despite the foregoing analysis that deems the Rainforest Alliance certification regime
weak, this work should be interpreted not as a condemnation of effort; rather it is a critique oforganizational ability. Because the state’s power cannot be invoked to ensure Rainforest
Alliance compliance with its own standards, independent evaluation must be used to assess its
certification regime. Through the process of independent robustness evaluation, somecertification regimes will emerge as superior to others over time, and those that are found to lackrobustness will either change their methods or disappear.
If the Rainforest Alliance certification hopes to emerge as a superior certification in acompetitive labeling market, it will need to reshape certification processes to change its incentive
structure to give itself third party independence. A more professional network of certification
professionals, a different fee structure, and a greater distance between corporate buyers and theRainforest Alliance are all measures that it could take to create third party status, as well as
increase its chances of surviving in the competitive certification market.

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VIII. Discussion Questions
1. How robust do you find the SAN certification process? What are the incentives of certifiers?
How well are they aligned with the goals? Why is evidence of alignment a cause for concern?
2. The Rainforest Alliance and SAN do not seem to have identified the stakeholders in its public
consultation process while developing the Rainforest Alliance standard? Does this affect thecredibility of the standard? How so?
3. Browse the Rainforest Alliance website to see if you can obtain information on the Rainforest
Alliance networks’ sources of revenues, composition of the board, and the backgrounds of theorganization staff. Why are these factors important to an organization’s credibility?
4. Rainforest Alliance adapts its certification criteria to each country’s unique social andenvironmental contexts but does not made the criteria process transparent. Suppose the criteria
were transparent- how do you think the Rainforest Alliance should design the criteria so that all
producers receive an even playing field? Is such a program possible?
5. How might the lack of uniform capacity across SAN’s local certifying organizations be acause of concern? How might this be a benefit?
6. Compare and contrast the Fair Trade and Rainforest Alliance certification process. Why mighta retailer prefer to buy Rainforest Alliance certified products over Fair Trade products? Can you
find any information on the number of products carrying the Rainforest Alliance logo versus the
Fair Trade label? Do supermarkets carry more products bearing one label over the other?
7. To a consumer, which of the two labels seems more credible? As a consumer, whichorganization’s certified products are you more likely to buy?

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IX. EndnotesiRainforest Alliance: About Us. http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/about.cfm?id=mission. Accessed March 10,
2006ii
Rainforest Alliance: Certified Crops http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/programs/agriculture/certifiedcrops/index.html. Accessed March 10, 2006
iiiiiiBeattie, Alan. “Coffees with a conscience ETHICAL BRANDING: Consumers have a choice between the
distinct approaches of marks such as Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance.” Financial Times (London, England)
October 18, 2005, Pg. 13
iv
International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling Alliance: About the Rainforest
Alliance.http://www.isealalliance.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=514&parentID=486&grandpar
entID=4&nodeID=1 Accessed March 14, 2006v
Rainforest Alliance: About the Sustainable Agriculture Network.
http://www.rainforestalliance.com/programs/agriculture/san/index.html Accessed March 10, 2006vi
Rainforest Alliance: Certification FAQs. http://www.rainforestalliance.org/programs/agriculture/certification/faq.html Accessed March 10, 2006vii
Rainforest Alliance: Certified Crop Standards http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/programs/agriculture/certifiedcrops/standards_2005.html Accessed March 10, 2006
viii
Ibid.
ix
Rainforest Alliance: Resumen de la Consulta Pública: Norma para Agricultura Sostenible – Red de Agricultura
Sostenible. www.rainforest-alliance.org/programs/agriculture/ certifiedcrops/documents/public_consultation_spanish.pdf Accessed March 10, 2006x
Rainforest Alliance: About Certificationhttp://www.rainforest-alliance.org/certification/about.html Accessed
March 10, 2006
xi
Fundación Natura: Certificación. http://www.natura.org.co/cert-costos.htm. Accessed March 16, 2006.
xii
Rainforest Alliance: About Certification. http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/certification/about.html. Accessed
March 10, 2006
xiii
Rainforest Alliance Annual Report, 2005. http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/about/documents/ar_2005.pdf p. 30
Accessed March 10, 2006
xiv
Ibid.
xv
Rainforest Alliance: About the Sustainable Agriculture Network
http://www.rainforestalliance.com/programs/agriculture/san/index.html Accessed March 10, 2006
xvi
Rainforest Alliance: Certification FAQs http://www.rainforestalliance.org/programs/agriculture/certification/faq.html Accessed March 10, 2006
xvii
Rainforest Alliance: Certification Information For Producers. http://www.rainforestalliance.org/programs/agriculture/certified-crops/producers.html Accessed March 10, 2006
xviii
Chiquita Case Study. Business and Sustainable Development: A Global Guide.
http://www.bsdglobal.com/viewcasestudy.asp?id=109. Accessed March 13, 2006.
xix
Chiquita Case Studies: Case Study #1. Chiquita Brands International, Inc. Corporate Responsibility Report.
2002. http://www.chiquita.com/chiquitacr02/casestudies_01.htm. Accessed March 13, 2006.
xx
Ibid.