Not long ago, sustainable certification
was mostly a phenomenon of hard-to-find "green" and or "ethical"
products that appealed to small market niche. Today, it's big
business, the glamorous object of mass marketing and branding, with
measurable percentage global market shares. But can mass salesmanship
convey the sense of mission behind it?
Just within the last year or so Rainforest Alliance (RA) Certified
coffee production expanded from Latin America into Ethiopia and global
giants such as Kraft put RA-Certified content into mainstream products
such as Yuban coffee or IKEA furniture, making made them available in
supermarkets and mass merchandise stores worldwide. The global market
for Forest Stewardship Council certified wood passed the $5 billion
mark. Other voluntary green and/or ethical certifications such as
Fairtrade and organic also experienced similar double digit growth in
recent years.
Scaling up in production and marketing has meant a corresponding boom
social and environmental benefits for workers and habitat in producing
countries, along with more and greener choices for consumers, and
that's what counts. Yet for those of us working in the sustainability
sector, it also presents some difficulties -- frustrating
misconceptions and distortions of the finer points of building a
greener, fairer economy in a big-league world of fierce competition,
big money and short sound bites.
For example, a recent Ethical Corporation piece
posted on GreenBiz last month rightly celebrated the importance of
ethical branding as the last great commodity differentiator among
competitors otherwise equal on cost and quality. But on the subject of
Kraft embracing Rainforest Alliance certification, it repeated the
misconception Fairtrade was "harder to achieve" than Rainforest
Alliance, the implication being that Kraft took the easier way out.
Rainforest Alliance certification is if anything more stringent on
many levels, though direct comparisons are problematic since the
certification programs are quite different. The problem we face in
explaining this is that the specific differences, best practices and
benefits of the various certification models could fill a Ph. D.
thesis, and don't lend themselves to a five-second tag line or a
bumper sticker.
Rainforest Alliance certification covers a broad range of
environmental, social and economic standards -- including rigorous
requirements for clean water, reduced pesticide use, habitat
protection, worker housing, health care and 200 other criteria.
Farmers have to commit to continuous improvements to get and maintain
certification. In return, they gain efficiencies and can command
higher prices for their crop -- a virtuous circle. Among its
particular selling points, the Rainforest Alliance program:
- gives equal attention to the economic, environmental and social
aspects of sustainability,
- was developed in the tropics by farmers, scientists, and NGOs to
benefit farmers, workers and wildlife;
- is managed by leading national NGOs in the producer countries;
- works with farms of all sizes, including plantations with
contracted labor forces.
So when Kraft and other companies or farmers choose Rainforest
Alliance, it isn't because RA is cheaper or easier than other
certifications; it’s simply that RA is a good fit with these
producers' corporate cultures and business models -- a critically
important matter when it comes to retooling businesses on a global
scale.
The fact is, progressive farmers and companies have widely divergent
needs, and they deserve a variety of sustainability models. In many
cases producers seek multiple certifications, proving that different
models aren’t mutually exclusive. There is room and need for
Rainforest Alliance Certified, Fairtrade, organic, FSC, Marine
Stewardship Council and other credible programs to do different, good
things and for each to find their places in the mass market.
But keeping them all straight is inside baseball. Try getting all the
above to flash through the minds of consumers while they are reading
an ad or choosing a product. It’s even a lot to ask of farmers who are
working on compliance with certification standards. In exhaustive
public consultations, producers recently asked us for standards to be
put in simpler, more accessible form, and we’ve responded with
revised documents that make principles and criteria clearer.
Branding is another form of simplification for consumers, but for
certified products it risks oversimplification. It's not enough that a
certified brand seem different from an uncertified one. With so many
companies jumping on the sustainability bandwagon, some more seriously
than others, it’s vital that brands convey a fair sense of why and how
the certification was achieved, including how it may differ from the
standards of another brand.
That means educating consumers and creating a market culture where
such differences are appreciated, though fora just like this one. It’s
a tall order, but with intense and growing interest in sustainable and
ethical products these days, there is reason to believe we can achieve
a mass market of sustainable brands driven not by hype, but by
educated consumer choices.
--------
Tensie Whelan is the executive director of the
Rainforest
Alliance.
©Copyright
The
National Environmental Education & Training Foundation
To subscribe or visit go to:
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/ |
