That's what Forever Chocolate is all about...
That's what Forever Chocolate is all about...
Forever Chocolate is our plan to make sustainable chocolate the norm. Launched in 2016, the Forever Chocolate targets for 2025 are unique in terms of ambition in the cocoa and chocolate industry. In 2023 we presented our sharpened targets adding new measurable targets for 2030 and beyond.
Forever Chocolate is focusing on four pillars, addressing the material challenges in the cocoa and chocolate supply chain:
Forever Chocolate - extending our scope and impact
We are committed to driving long-term systemic change for a sustainable cocoa supply chain, with the support of our customers and to the benefit of all stakeholders.
For Forever Chocolate to become a reality, public intervention is required to drive structural change beyond Barry Callebaut’s direct supply chain. An enabling policy environment and government action in origin countries is essential to address the issue of traceability, rural infrastructure development and proper enforcement of national policies and legislation.
Prospering Farmers
- By 2025, more than 500,000 cocoa farmers in our supply chain will have been lifted out of poverty.
- By 2030, we will have mobilized key stakeholders around a transformative cocoa farming model generating living income.
As of 2021/22, almost 215,000 cocoa farmers in our supply chain are lifted out of poverty. Lifting cocoa farmers out of poverty is a first step. We aim for a longer poverty reduction perspective towards 2030, towards a living income. For this, we will therefore shift our focus away from training cocoa farmers, towards providing input support, through subsidized soil inputs, planting material, financial support for third-party labor services and additional premiums. Cocoa farmers have a solid understanding of sustainable agricultural practices, but their main struggle is access to investments in their farms.
We measure success by focusing on outcome over outputs. Our Prospering Farmers ambition for 2030 will create a framework where our performance is measured on average yield, income and size of farms of the cocoa farmers we source from. Delivering some of these outcomes, such as farm size, are beyond our direct influence. We therefore commit to mobilize key stakeholders including governments, to unite around a transformative cocoa farming model generating living income.
Human Rights
- By 2025, our entire supply chain will be covered by Human Rights Due Diligence, remediating all child labor cases identified.
- By 2030, the farming communities we source from are empowered to protect child rights.
We have sharpened our 2025 target, committing to covering our entire supply chain by Human Rights Due Diligence. This includes the continued monitoring and remediation of child labor cases. At the same time, we are adding a target for 2030, supporting cocoa farming communities to protect child rights and prevent child labor from occurring. This approach focuses on the adoption of child- centric due diligence systems in cocoa farming communities, empowering communities to protect child rights. This means early recognition of children at risk of being involved in the worst forms of child labor and action to mitigate these risks.
We measure success through the amount of cocoa farming communities with functioning child protection systems, as well as the percentage of adults and children reporting an improved sense of wellbeing.
Thriving Nature
- By 2025, we will be forest positive.
- By 2030, we will have decarbonized our footprint in line with global efforts to cap global warming at 1,5 degrees Celsius.
- By 2050, we will be a netzero company.
While maintaining our target to become forest positive by 2025, we move away from offsetting our carbon footprint and instead focus increasingly on insetting through agroforestry. This shift will align with the emission reduction trajectory of the Paris Agreement by 2030 and make us become a net-zero company by 2050. To assess progress, we will measure the reduction in our scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, the number of cocoa farming hectares in our supply chain under agroforestry, the tonnes of carbon removals achieved, the percentage of raw materials demonstrated to not have contributed to deforestation and the carbon intensity per metric tonne of product sold.
Sustainable Ingredients
- By 2030, we will have 100% certified or verified cocoa and other ingredients in all of our products, traceable to farm level.
We are extending the deadline for all our ingredients to be certified or verified to 2030, in order for them to also be traceable to farm level. We will measure by reporting on the percentage of ingredients sourced which are certified or verified and traceable to farm level. In addition, recognizing that certification is only a starting point for building a sustainable cocoa and chocolate supply chain, we will continuously benchmark the certification and verification criteria we apply to ensure the standards remain meaningful.
Our approach to materiality
There are many players along the cocoa value chain. To be successful, we must engage these and other stakeholders so as to identify the key sustainability issues facing our business. Regular dialogue with stakeholders ranging from farmer cooperatives to customers and from investors to governments helps to inform our approach to these issues. We are in regular dialogue with customers, investors, media, governments, industry associations, multi-stakeholder initiatives and NGOs and take into consideration their views, expectations or concerns on sustainability matters. Issues which are deemed relevant to our stakeholders and our business are plotted in a materiality matrix (below). How we manage these issues depends on their relevance to both stakeholders and Barry Callebaut. Our level of engagement depends on how material the issue is to us and our stakeholders. We manage and report on all other issues identified as material, while we monitor those of lower relevance.
