the Sustainable Coconut Charter
& its assurance system
22 Principles & Ambitions
to enable
Market Transformation
Born from Multi Stakeholder consultations in September 2020
The Sustainable Coconut Charter was developed as an industry wide first endeavor to define coconut sustainability. The charter was conceived in 2020 and received more than 100 inputs from various stakeholders engaged directly and indirectly in coconut supply chains
It has been conceived as a guidance first, and a verification tool fit for purpose, pragmatic, progressive, and sector aligned acting in complementarity to existing ones.
It aims to:
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Outline areas of focus, principles and outcomes that should be expected of organizations and sustainability programs in coconut supply chains based on multi-stakeholder consultations.
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Harmonize buyers’ requirements for supply chain partners
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Help organizations benchmark, verify and make claims regarding their sustainability practices for coconut
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Streamline action towards meaningful pre-competitive collaboration and mutually recognized, robust sustainability programs
Here's a breakdown of the development process:
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Multi-stakeholder consultations: Over 100 organizations, including companies, NGOs, and experts, contributed to the charter, providing diverse perspectives and ensuring its comprehensiveness.
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Review and streamlining: The charter underwent a thorough and public review process to refine its focus areas, principles, and ambitions, aligning them with best practices and industry needs.
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Focus on key areas: The charter emphasizes three main impact areas: increasing smallholder farmer incomes, enhancing supply chain traceability, and preventing deforestation and climate change.
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Principles and outcomes: The charter outlines principles and expected outcomes for sustainability programs in coconut supply chains, providing guidance for companies to measure and improve their performance.
The Charter V2.0 was published in November 2023
We are thrilled to announce a significant leap forward in the pursuit of catalyzing sustainable coconut practices – the successful industry adoption of a revised Sustainable Coconut Charter version 2.0.
This revised charter introduces revised principles and ambitious goals addressing key facets of supply chain management, social responsibility, and biodiversity conservation.
2024: Addition of an assurance system desired by SCP members
During the second review of the Sustainable Coconut Charter, members voted on the creation a new and inclusive, step wise assurance system responding to the lack of uptake and market transformation of current schemes in global markets recognizing that most coconut farmers and companies do not benefit nor engage in enough in current sustainability assurance systems due to heavy investment requirements in supply chains where farmers are mostly unorganized and trapped in vicious circles of poverty.
Members of SCP publicly voted to create and adopt the Assurance System on November 23, 2023, during the Sustainable Coconut Roundtable Annual Conference in Jakarta, in the presence of senior representatives from production-country governments. The system was officially unveiled on September 27, 2024, at the 2024 Sustainable Coconut Roundtable in Manila.
Standard Documents will be released on Feb 24th 2025
How was the Assurance system Developed
Adapting
sustainability
to farmers
and not
the other way
around
🌴🌱 Embracing a New Era of Assurance: Why It's Essential 🌱🌴
- Bali Indonesia, May 2024
Last autumn, we spearheaded the revision of the #SustainableCoconutCharter, rallying over 200 stakeholders from the industry and beyond adopting one common framework. the charter benefited from an alignment effort with the Principles of the "Accountability Framework"
Today, it is evolving into an innovative assurance system aimed at substantiating sustainability claims and championing companies as agents of change and sustainable trade partners.
"It's sobering to note that a staggering 99% of coconut volumes traded still does not support sustainable farming practices, perpetuating cycles of poverty among farmers.
The status quo underscores a critical need for market interventions that genuinely drive positive change." - Gregory Bardies, Executive Director, Sustainable Coconut Partnership
This is where the collective efforts of the Sustainable Coconut Partnership come into play:
Designed to catalyze genuine sustainability within the coconut industry, our approach fosters alignment and common ground among buyers, processors, cooperatives, and farmers alike. By providing a framework for progress at scale, we aim to break the cycle of unsustainable practices and uplift communities.
🥥 What sets the system apart?
The Assurance System development involved leading experts in coconut production and standard-setting with practical and on-the-ground experience engaging smallholders. It benefited from extensive consultations outside the partnership, and intends to align with international references such as the Accountability Framework and ISEAL standards to ensure robustness, completeness and best practices. A voluntary taskforce comprising companies within the Sustainable Coconut Partnership (SCP)—some of the industry’s top processors and buyers—brought practical, on-the-ground experience.
🌟 A Progressive Approach
The Assurance System adopts a grading approach with three claim levels. By design, this system promotes a culture of continuous improvement rather than enforcing rigid step-by-step progress or striving for perfection in coconuts’ long and complex supply chain.
This progressive framework empowers businesses to drive market transformation and gradually provide essential support across the supply chain, addressing the ongoing global challenges of traceability and transparency.
🌟Integrated Verification
Responsibility for applying the Assurance System is distributed across the supply chain. The application of the system is designed to encourage upstream stakeholders—farmers, cooperatives/traders, first points of processing, and other actors—to work collaboratively, rather than placing a disproportionate burden on farm groups to meet requirements.
By addressing this often-overlooked aspect of supply chain management in smallholder systems, we aim to create better pathways for investments to reach farmers, who are the backbone of the supply chain.
Our system focuses on a tailored set of practices for each actor in the chain. It ensures that assurance reports provide clear insights into the performance of each stakeholder within the system.
🌟 Coconut Specific Approach
In order to establish transparent, reliable metrics that are industry aligned, and focus on coconut specific issues, we conducted extensive research and consultations with experienced operators. This pointed to the need to go beyond a sole focus on agricultural practices and farm boundaries to solve systemic issues in the coconut sector.
Our system includes focusing on: replanting programmes, youth engagement, market prices transparency and key aspects of supply chain management and transparency in smallholder supply chains.
🌟 Volume and Performance Claims:
Our system will not only validate volume claims but also assess companies' performance levels in sustainability, recognizing verified actors as agents of change and sustainable trade partners. We’re in process of alignment against some of the best practices for sustainability systems.
🌟 Designed with operational profitability and economic sustainability in mind
To make the system more cost-effective and efficient, we considered how better-designed interventions, operational efficiency, and improved break-even projections could help operators maintain their verification status.
Our system incorporates features such as a grading approach, a lean and fit-for-purpose standard, and allowances for additional scopes like supply chain management and jurisdictional approaches. These elements aim to share responsibility for sustainability more equitably across the chain.
Active piloting of the standard by the Sustainable Coconut Partnership ensures that it remains adaptive and calibrated for operational profitability and economic sustainability. At the same time, it delivers credible, data-driven, and verified insights.
🌍✨Together, we're forging a path towards a more sustainable future for the coconut industry—one that prioritizes integrity, inclusivity, and progress vs aiming for the stars.
Join us in this transformative journey. Together, we can make a difference.
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The new assurance system will be piloted by members in 2025
Karen Thyvia Lourdes, Global Sustainable Sourcing Leader, Sugar and Coconut, Nestlé
The Sustainable Coconut Charter in numbers
The V2 review cycle
The Sustainable Coconut Partnership launched an ambitious revision of the Sustainable Coconut Charter – the key market instrument to drive the coconut sector towards a more sustainable, more equitable and climate-friendly future.
The Partnership is initiating its first review cycle of the Charter’s principles and ambitions and the development of tools needed to help make supply chains ready for sustainable change.
The revision process brought together peer companies and other stakeholders to define shared goals and scale up sustainable supply chains at the sectoral level to:
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Review and streamline areas of focus ensuring the comprehensiveness and relevance of the Sustainable Coconut Charter and its future assurance scheme.
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Inform on the shape of the upcoming assurance scheme of the Sustainable Coconut Charter
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Set a common criterion for a supply chain transparency & traceability in light of existing bottlenecks and loss of traceability to increase transparency by focusing on practical and achievable progress in a partnership spirit along the supply chains.
About
“The Sustainable Coconut Partnership believes in continuous improvement and getting progress. For this revision, we are undertaking a review of the current charter with the Accountability Framework in line with codes of good practices for voluntary standards, as well as a comprehensive review of industry practices to ensure we make a step towards progress versus thriving for perfection in a long, complex supply chain at a time where traceability is still a challenge in most origins globally”
Gregory Bardies, Executive Director, Sustainable Coconut Partnership
About the 2023 Sustainable Coconut Charter review
Sustainable Coconut Charter V1.0
