Rainforest Alliance (RA)

Rainforest Alliance (RA)
Rainforest Alliance is a non-profit organization founded in 1986, their mission is to “conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behaviour”. Rainforest Alliance has been working primarily with the sustainable forestry and tropical agriculture sectors, but they also have programs for sustainable tourism and education.

The Rainforest Alliance Certified seal of approval helps link conscientious consumers with responsible farmers and forestry enterprises that comply (respectively) with the comprehensive criteria outlined by the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The Sustainable Agriculture Network is a coalition of independent non-profit conversation organizations that promote social and environmental sustainability of agricultural activities by developing standards.

The Sustainable Agriculture Network Standard and its match with Fairfood Sustainability Agenda (FSA)
Rainforest alliance requires producers to comply with social and environmental issues outlined in their standards, policies and review processes which meet the terms of the ISEAL Alliance Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards.  Compliance is verified by independent third party  verification audits.
As indicated in the table below, Fairfood matches RA standard requirements with its Sustainability Agenda issues. Most social and environmental issues indicated by Fairfood’s agenda are sufficiently matched by RA standards.

Fairfood Sustainability Agenda (FSA) Issues		RA Standards
Social	Insufficient Income and Income Security
	Child Labour
	Unreasonable Working Hours
	Forced Labour
	Lack of Freedom of Association
	Unhealthy and Unsafe Working Conditions
	Discrimination
	Violation of Land rights
Environment	Restricted Access to Natural Resources
	Harmful Agricultural and Aquafarming Practices
	Water Mismanagement and Contamination
	Air Pollution
	Degradation of Ecosystems
	Lack of Animal Health and Welfare
Economic	Tax Avoidance
	Abuse of Dominant Position
	Misuse of Transfer Pricing
	Market Distorting Subsidies
	Discriminatory Standards
	Lack of Access to Financial Services
	Insufficient Market- related Infrastructure
	Unclear Agreements
	Corruption
	Unfair Import Tariffs and Quotas

Sufficient match with FSA issue	Insufficient match with FSA issue
No match with FSA issue	Not Applicable*
*These Issues represent institutional obstacles to increasing sustainability throughout the food industry, and are thus beyond the scope of voluntary sustainability initiatives. Therefore, the standards of these initiatives are not assessed based on these issues.