According to the WWF (2020), deforestation is a major global issue which is directly linked to forests being converted into land for crops or grazing (a phenomenon which accounts for 50% of deforested spaces). 43 million hectares of forest disappeared between 2004 and 2017.
Climate change is directly affected by deforestation, as forests play a crucial role in regulating the climate by absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Deforestation (by burning and felling trees) releases large quantities of CO2 stored in trees and soil, which in turn contributes to global warming.
Deforestation and cocoa farming are unfortunately correlated for various reasons:
To tackle these challenges, Valrhona relies on its long-term relationships with partners and producers as a means of supporting them in the fight against deforestation and global warming.
Valrhona has been a signatory of the World Cocoa Foundation’s Cocoa & Forests Initiative since 2017. The Initiative, which was launched first in Ivory Coast and Ghana, is an international commitment.
This commitment took the form of Framework signed at the 23rd United Nations Climate Change Conference and plays a crucial role in supporting forest-based carbon capture as a means of mitigating climate change globally and locally. Businesses and governments alike are taking specific, jointly planned steps to eradicate illegal cocoa production in national parks, to ensure national forestry policies are enforced more effectively, and to develop alternative means of making a living for the producers affected.
Over 50 stakeholders are involved in implementing action plans. This work is overseen by chocolate and cocoa companies and government representatives, with the active support and expertise of development partners, research bodies, environmental organizations, civic leaders, and producer associations. The Initiative is chaired by the Ivorian and Ghanaian governments and facilitated by the IDH (or the Sustainable Trade Initiative) and the World Cocoa Foundation.
Valrhona is committed to having no plots on protected land. By overlaying all our partner growers' plots onto each country’s official map, we can check that none are in a protected area.
Valrhona is committed to reducing its carbon use across all emission scopes:
GHG Protocol’s 2018 assessment of our carbon footprint revealed that emissions linked to cocoa and other derivatives made up 67% of our total - that meant 127,668 tons of CO2.
So that we can maintain our zero-carbon plans, our priority is to use cocoa beans that don’t come from deforested areas, and to help our partners to develop agroecological practices in their own work.
We want to further pinpoint our carbon footprint assessments at ground level, so we have launched a program with Nitidæ (an NGO which specializes in managing projects that combine environmental protection with stronger local economies) to calculate our cocoa beans’ carbon footprint from the growing area itself.
These field studies carried out and certified by the NGO have made it possible to survey, qualify and quantify the risk of deforestation over a 20-year period.
This work will:
For example, from 2025 onwards, we are committed to calculating each cocoa’s carbon footprint according to where it was sourced and to drawing up a related action plan.
We are working with Nitidæ - an NGO which specializes in managing projects that combine environmental protection with stronger local economies - in the sourcing areas that provided 71% of our cocoa in 2022 (Belize, Brazil, Madagascar, Peru, São Tomé, Ghana, and Ivory Coast), so that we can better target our carbon-reducing action on the ground.
Nitidæ is carrying out field work including forest and biomass inventories and surveys with producers. These will enable us to fine-tune our actions to suit each country’s risk levels, biodiversity impact, and plantations.
Thanks to these studies, we will then be able to better adapt support and training for producers about low-carbon agricultural practices, and to carry out targeted local action.
Through the testimony of Nans Mouret, Valrhona's cocoa sourcer, and Thomas Fabre from Nitidae, discover the actions taken by Valrhona to calculate our carbon footprint.
At Valrhona, we are aware that minimum prices are not enough to guarantee a decent standard of living, and we are acting accordingly.
In Ivory Coast, over the last five years Valrhona has bought its cocoa at a price averaging 34% more than the minimum guaranteed by the state. Valrhona also gives producers a premium based on quality. In Ghana, in 2022, the premium per bag was increased by 40% to help producers cope with local inflation.
In West Africa, the NGO International Cocoa Initiative estimates that 1.56 million children are forced to work alongside their families. At Valrhona, we are aware of the need to do better and make every effort to combat child labor.
Valrhona has been committed to programs that facilitate and improve access to education since 2014.14 schools have been built and renovated in Ivory Coast, Ghana, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela supporting a total of 65 cohorts and 2,555 students.
At Valrhona, we know that agroecology is a priority if we are to sustain cocoa-growing over the long term, so we have a responsibility to help our producers to adopt this practice.
Since 2015, we have been a founding member of the Cacao Forest project, a pioneering multi-sector initiative that aims to build a sustainable cocoa industry through agroforestry.
Between 2015 and 2022, several agroforestry models were tested in the Dominican Republic, and the most successful ones were identified and ready to be rolled out across the country. Since 2023, the Cacao Forest program has been developing a proposal for Ivory Coast.
Traceability underpins all our policies and ambitions and is a prerequisite for any environmentally and socially responsible business. It enables us to monitor, strengthen and orient our actions.
100% of Valrhona cocoa beans are traced from the producer. To go further, Valrhona is committed to extending its plot-based traceability so that we can gain even more visibility over production areas. By the end of 2022, 60% of our bean harvest had been geolocated and mapped - that is 6,951 producers with over 11,441 hectares of mapped plots.
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