An ABC investigation in Sri Lanka has found popular certification schemes are failing to live up to their ethical promises.
On one estate visited by the ABC, we met tea plucker Vimaladevi, who showed us inside the one-bedroom home where she lives with seven family members.
“I was born in this house and all my children were born here,” she said.
This plantation has Rainforest Alliance certification and is on the supplier list of Tetley, Dilmah, Lipton, Twinings and Yorkshire Tea.
Under Rainforest Alliance certification, these houses need to be “safe, clean and decent”, but Vimaladevi’s roof is damaged and her home regularly floods.
During the dry season, there’s no drinking water. Early last year “for three months we didn’t have water,” she said.
Despite Rainforest Alliance requiring audits to ensure that standards are met, Vimaladevi said she’s never met an auditor.
“Nobody’s come to see our house. You’re the only one to come and see.”
The article repeatedly lumps Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade together, but they are not the same at all, and I didn’t see any examples of inspection failures for Fair Trade.
To be certified for Fair Trade, the producers must be a cooperative. That is relatively easy to check and it means that there is no-one to impose harsh conditions on the workers.
I didn’t see any examples of inspection failures for Fair Trade.
From the article (with emphasis added)
On one estate, listed as a supplier for Lipton and Twinings, we met estate worker Darshini.
The estate had Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade certification. While Lipton only sources tea from Rainforest Alliance-certified estates, Twinings has its own set of ethical standards.
Darshini has been a tea plucker for nearly three decades, since she was a teenager, and knows the meaning of a hard day’s work. A map showing Sri Lanka’s tea growing regions.
She was one of dozens of women plucking tea in a remote field on the day the ABC visited.
The work is arduous. To receive the minimum wage she needs to pluck 18kg of tea before the daily weigh-in to meet her quota.
“I have only plucked 6kg so far. I have to pick another 12 kilos,” she said. “If it’s 15 kilos or less I’ll get half pay.”
When the workers finish plucking for the day they must march several kilometres to the weigh-in, with heavy sacks of tea leaves on their backs.
Tea plucker Darshini has to pick 18kg of tea a day or risk being paid less than the minimum wage.
Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade certification is intended to ease some of the harsh conditions inherent in this kind of work.
For workers on this estate, it should guarantee they “always have access to safe and sufficient drinking water” and “sufficient, clean and functioning toilets” either in the fields or close by.
But the workers here told the ABC the plantation had provided neither.
“We do not have these facilities while we are in the field,” said tea plucker Maheswarie. “There is no toilet in the field.”
They also said that they regularly lost access to drinking water in their houses on the estate.
Breaches of Rainforest Alliance standards should be uncovered through routine audits, but according to Maheswarie, the auditors come but managers “don’t allow us to talk to them”.
“Maybe the auditors don’t get to talk to us because we might tell them the truth,” she said.
OK, I missed that one, but it is also slightly strange, right? Since neither Lipton nor Twinings use the Fairtrade mark, why do they have it? Who else do they supply?
Still, I have to accept that Fairtrade International didn’t reply “no, that isn’t one of ours” when asked for comment.
Having checked, it seems that the Fairtrade standards now allow producers that are not cooperatives.
That’s messed up. Certifications should be inspected and enforced.
Any idea which brands are ok? I see Dilmah doing a lot
At this point it’s best to consider every certification scheme to be a form of greenwashing; a meaningless virtue signal.
