A new study has identified certain weaknesses in the auditing of some sustainability practices on cocoa farms in Côte d'Ivoire.
Here's what to know
In a study published this month in Science, researchers from ETH Zurich, a university in Switzerland, reviewed records from 407 cocoa farms participating in a shade-tree-planting program run by an international company, according to a press release.
The co-authors found that auditors involved in monitoring the planting program, aimed at promoting tree health and biodiversity, were more likely to alter records when they were aware of the exact benchmark a farmer needed to hit.
The researchers identified apparent manipulation in roughly one in four monitoring cases, with those alterations concentrated among farms that first fell short of the planting program criteria. "The auditors therefore very specifically adjusted only the data relevant to passing the audit," lead author Federico Cammelli said, per the university release.
More background
The concern goes beyond tree planting and cocoa farms, as Food Ingredients First noted.
Farm-level audits are widely used by food and beverage companies to back environmental and social claims that can be not only appealing to consumers but also required by law. That makes the issue especially significant for companies selling cocoa into the European Union under the EU Deforestation Regulation, which requires proof that products are not tied to deforestation or forest degradation.
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Cammelli, a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich's Environmental Policy Lab, told Food Ingredients First that the problem is especially serious because "a final record can look properly verified even when the underlying information has been strategically changed."
Cammelli also warned that the way these systems are structured can encourage inaccurate reporting.
"When the people producing compliance data are closely connected to those who benefit from compliance, the system creates a conflict of interest," explained Cammelli, who also underscored that the study evaluated just one monitoring system in just one country.
What can be done?
The research team pointed to a relatively straightforward safeguard: not disclosing to auditors the exact threshold farmers must meet. In cases where auditors did not know the required target, the rate of altered data dropped from 25% to 11%, the study found.
The findings are also a reminder about how greenwashing can show up in everyday products.
Without stronger safeguards, "sustainability" risks becoming more of a marketing strategy than a meaningful promise. But Cammelli suggested that any meaningful solution must account for the pressures placed on small farmers and reporting systems.
"Companies need to understand who collected the data, what incentives they faced, whether the records were changed, and how the results were independently checked," Cammelli told Food Ingredients First.
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