Sustainability certificates such as Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance and Cocoa Life promise to improve the livelihoods of small-scale cocoa producers while preserving the biodiversity on their plantations. Together with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, researchers from the University of Göttingen have investigated whether sustainability certificates actually achieve both these goals. To find out, they carried out an analysis within the Ghanaian cocoa production sector. Their results show that although certification improves both cocoa yield and cocoa income for small-scale producers, they were unable to find any effects on biodiversity in the cocoa plantations. The results were published in the journal Ecological Economics.
Ghana is the second largest cocoa producer in the world; however, its cocoa sector is associated with many socio-economic and environmental problems. The current study is one of the most comprehensive to date on the effects of sustainability certification: the fieldwork included interviews with 814 cocoa-producers and biodiversity surveys on 119 cocoa plantations, covering 46 villages in five major cocoa-growing regions of the country. The researchers conclude that the implementation of sustainability certification in Ghana is achieving its goal in promoting the economic situation for small-scale producers, but they were unable to find any improvements or negative effect on biodiversity.
"The higher yields and associated income from cocoa are a result of the certification requirements, as they motivate small-scale producers to participate in training," explains first author Marlene Wätzold at Göttingen University's Research Training Group on Sustainable Food Systems. "Although certified small-scale producers are also encouraged to promote the biodiversity in their plantations, we found no significant environmental effects."
"In our study, we found no evidence of a trade-off between yield and biodiversity," adds Dr Carolina Ocampo-Ariza at Göttingen University's Functional Agrobiodiversity and Agroecology Group. "However, it should be borne in mind that biodiversity changes over longer periods of time, meaning that identifying a change can take longer."
The findings of the study suggest that to achieve tangible benefits to nature, the requirements for sustainability certification probably need to be complemented by further biodiversity conservation measures.
The research was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Research Training Group "Sustainable Food Systems".
Original publication: Marlene Yu Lilin Wätzold et al. "Do voluntary sustainability standards improve socioeconomic and ecological outcomes? Evidence from Ghana's cocoa sector". Ecological Economics (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108474
