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Ecocert Fair Trade standards
Summary

Ecocert is a private company that is involved in certification and standard setting. At the moment Ecocert is a certification body for different kinds of schemes, in the field of organic, food safety, environmental and social compliance. Ecocert has developed a set of standards defining fair and responsible trade, together with related documents, control tools and certification procedures. Ecocert Fair Trade (EFT) Standards emphasize social and environmental criteria and require consideration of the entire commodity chain.
Objective  Is the focus of the standard on economic, social, environmental, food safety or organic issues?
 Social-economic:
These standards emphasize social and economic sustainability and give consideration to the entire commodity chain
Why?  Who is asking you to use this system? Is it a market requirement or a voluntary system?
 EFT is a voluntary system for the complete supply chain.
Scope of the standard  What kind of processes within your organisation/company should be changed according to the standard’s criteria? Most systems look at the production process, and/or look at the processing of the produce. Some systems look at organisational processes as well, e.g. if democratic structures are in place, how support departments are organized (HRM/financial), if internal control systems are in place, if ILO labour conditions are implemented, etcetera. Additionally the processes of your suppliers or service provider can be part of the standards’ scope as well. This means that you are responsible for the sustainability of their (or part of their) actions as well.
organisational processes Y: democracy, transparency, labour conditions, non-discrimination.
(on-farm) production Y
processing Y
supplier/service provider Y
Who can apply?  Not every code or standard can be used by every actor within the supply chain. Some are just targeted to a specific group within the chain, others focus on the complete chain. You can think of the following parties: producers/producer group, processor, exporter/trader, importer, retailer.  
producers/producer groups Independent producer groups; mainly smallholders. Farming enterprises using hired labour only upon approval by Certification Cottee.
processor Y
exporter/trader Y
importer Y
retail Y
Products  Most systems focus on specific products, product groups or sectors. Please look carefully if you produce falls under the scope of the standard.
 Commodities: agro-food & non food (textiles, cosmetics).
Markets  Although most systems are used worldwide, they often have their origin or focus in a specific country or region. Some countries/regions prefer a certain code or standard.
 EU market, but mainly France
Benefits  A very legitimate question is what this specific certification means to you. Does it provide you access to markets, or even to niche markets? Does it guarantee a better price, or maybe even a premium on top of a minimum price? Does it create better access to support services?  
market access Y
access to niche market Y
premium Premium is used to develop social fund for Producer Organisation (PO). PO has to contribute min 1% of sales price + key operator contributes min. 1% of purchase price. Additionally, premium price is encouraged for higher quality products.
other Minimum guaranteed price based on cost of production (taken into account living wage) and margin (to enable farmers to invest in production, organisation, health and education.)
Support services  To be able to comply with the requirements of such systems, you may need some support. Various experts in the field of certification are available and can give this (paid/free) support. Yes commercially available
Adaptations/investments   - Participatory and democratic structure of producer group
- Appoint responsible person in each part of the EFT chain
- Details on annual turnover and margin per product/market
- Condition for FT certification of banana, cotton and flowers: first organic certification
- For all other products implementation of good agricultural practices and restriction use pesticides is required.
Costs & Time  Working with these certification systems and implementing the necessary steps is often not an easy task. You have to be aware of the many implications and adaptations you may have to make. This section gives some examples of the kind of investments you to have to think of. - Annual audit costs
- Certification costs: fee per day for certification process
- Corrective action costs
System characteristics  In this section you will find a link to the standard itself and some main points of attention.
 The EFT standards are developed by Ecocert and based on international sources such as the ILO conventions, WTO treaties and OECD. The certification Committee validates the label, the technical committee updates the standards, and the committee on price setting sets the minimum prices.
The EFT standard should be implemented in every part of commodity chain to be able to carry the label.
A key operator, is often the distributor in the importing country, is the responsible of the EFT standard upstream.
Downstream operators are controlled and accredited individually.
It is a growing system in which a yearly improvement plan form the guideline for progress.

For the standards we refer to the website of Ecocert. click here
Verification    
internal inspection Yearly monitoring on improvement plan of certification.
See stage plan on the website
external inspection - By an external accredited Certification Body (Ecocert) supervised by the Certification Committee of Ecocert.
- Ecocert has certification bodies/offices in 80 different countries.
Type of label  One of ways to show that a product complies with a specific standard is to label it. Some codes or standards do not use a label at all. Nevertheless, most choose to carry a Business to Business (B2B) or a Consumer label.
 Consumer label: only if the whole commodity chain complied with the EFT standards.
Who's behind it?  What is the origin of the standard, and who has initiated the idea? Who is the owner of the certification system?
 Ecocert is private company. It mainly is a control and certification body, and has also set these fair trade standards as an answer to market demand.
Trends  The trend section is mainly based on future perspectives of the standard. Are they going to expand to other products, other markets? Is there increasing interest from markets for this specific certification? What can you expect in the coming period?
 EFT standards have been introduced in 2007. Certified several producer groups for different EU markets. Especially those groups / products that were already certified organic.
Developments are going on to develop standards for northern producers (responsible trade).
Contact Thierry Schlumph
  website Ecocert
   
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