Due diligence and voluntary sustainability standards in the cocoa sector: The case of Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance standards in the face of public policies fighting imported deforestation in France and in the European Union

Abstract

The fight against imported deforestation has emerged as a new fundamental objective in the European Union, and even more specifically in France. This policy is based on a procedure known as “due diligence.” The cocoa sector is particularly targeted by this new duty. Firms in the value chain must therefore assume this new responsibility by finding ways to guarantee that the cocoa they use comes from areas not deforested by cocoa plantations. To do this, companies in the value chain rely on sustainability standards, including the Fairtrade label. This new objective also obliges the organizations managing the sustainability standards to integrate it. We can then observe an increasing convergence of the new Rainforest Alliance and the Fairtrade standards around a common basis, even though historically the guarantees they offered were singularly different.