Cocoa production has contributed significantly to deforestation, a major cause of climate change and the collapse of biodiversity.
To curb this phenomenon, in 2023 the European Union adopted a regulation banning the import of products that have contributed to deforestation from 2021, applicable from 2025. For their part, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire have produced the West African standard ARS-1000, which establishes “good practice” requirements to guarantee the traceability and sustainability of the cocoa sector.
Achieving this level of transparency will require far-reaching changes to the organization of a sector hitherto characterized by the opacity of the raw material’s origins.
However, the various links in the cocoa-chocolate chain have neither the same assets, nor the same constraints, to make the changes needed to meet the sector’s socio-economic and environmental challenges.
In this context, is the promulgation of common rules of the game (“level playing field”) sufficient to guarantee the sector’s ecological transition? How will and can players comply with the requirements of the RDUE and ARS-1000? In particular, what are the direct impacts on the most upstream players in the sector: producers and cooperatives?
With a view to supporting these changes, Commerce Équitable France, the Réseau Ivoirien du Commerce Équitable (RICE), the Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO), and Agronomes et Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (AVSF) commissioned IDEF and BF Consult to carry out a study as part of the Programme Équité 2, summarized in this document.
