The Rainforest Alliance is creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities.
The Sustainable Agriculture standard, assurance system, data systems and technology are designed to bring more value to farmers and companies around the world that use Rainforest Alliance certification as an essential tool to drive sustainable agricultural production and to responsible supply chains.
Farms, groups of farms and supply chain organizations that comply with all the requirements applicable to the Sustainable Agriculture Standard, and with the processes of the Rainforest Alliance Assurance Rules may sell, ship and/or buy their products with the Rainforest Alliance Certified certification.
For more information about the Rainforest Alliance, you can visit http://www.rainforest-alliance.org
Certification processCreate a Rainforest Alliance Platform (RACP) account: All certificate holders wishing to join the Rainforest Alliance certification program must create a RACP account.
You must define your certification scope according to your certification option; include the corresponding entities and activities, and in this way, you will obtain the applicable requirements and self-assessment of the RACP. This information must be reviewed and updated when necessary; at least 1 time a year. The entire certification scope must be covered by the certification account. However, you can choose to create separate certification accounts for different certification scopes. The relevant documents will be available in your RACP platform account. You will need to complete your risk assessment in the RACP. Once this part is managed, contact CU Services.
Application with CU Services: Once the CAF is completed in its current version, according to your certification option, CUservices will review your application request and assess whether it can offer you the service. In this evaluation, it will also be verified if the requested scope is correct or if it needs to be adjusted. You will be asked for the required documents before audit.
- Contract: our commercial executives will send you an economic proposal, describing the costs. Along with the offer letter you will find the Terms of Contract. If you agree to the offer, return a copy signed by the legal representative. Once the contract is signed, you enter into an agreement with CUServices to join our certification program.
- Planning: after receiving the payment of the fee for the service, we will plan the date of your visit, likewise, through the auditor in charge, CUServices will send you the pertinent documents that you must complete and send us before the audit.
- Initial Audit: This is the first audit of a client for a CUServices certification program. The lead auditor or qualified audit team will assess your operation's compliance with the program requirements. As a result of the audit, non-compliances (Non-conformities) against the program requirements can be detected. The lead auditor will inform you of these during the closing meeting and will indicate the deadlines for resolving non-compliances. You must present your corrections, cause analysis and corrective actions to resolve the NCs. This information will be evaluated by the auditor, who will determine if the evidence is sufficient or not for the effective closing of the non-conformity.
- Certification decision: based on the results of the audit and effective closure of findings, the certifier will make a certification decision, whether or not to grant certification.
- Issuance of Transaction Certificates: If you have been issued a certificate for the program, you will need to record each transaction of certified products on the Rainforest Alliance platform to enable the issuance of a transaction certificate.
- Certification maintenance: the client must demonstrate that it continues to meet the requirements of the program, for which follow-up audits will be planned according to the certification cycle. CU Services may carry out other types of audits, in accordance with the provisions of the scheme, to maintain the certification. As a result of this process, it will be decided whether to maintain, broaden, reduce, suspend or withdraw the certification granted.
The program documents can be found at the following link:
2020 Certification Program | Rainforest Alliance for Business (rainforest-alliance.org)
Pre-audit serviceOptionally, Control Union Services provides the Pre-Audit service, which aims to verify preliminary compliance with the requirements established by the standard, from this process an audit report is generated for the client, which will serve the owner. certification to identify improvement opportunities within your system.
This pre-audit process While this is independent of a Certification process described by the Rainforest Alliance Certification and Audit document, no certification decision is made based on these results.
If you would like this service, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Our costsControl Union has established a rate for the services we provide, which considers:
Audit days (reference calculation within the Certification Application Form-CAF), as well as sampling, scope and audit objective.
Administrative expenses and those corresponding to the standard
Travel costs and logistics of the process
To make a proposal according to the dimensions of your company, please contact us.
InquiriesIf you have any questions about the RA program, please write to us at consultasRA@controlunion.com; we will be happy to answer you.
Our office hours are Monday through Friday from 08:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. – 05:00 pm
Applicable lawsIn this section you will find the evaluation of laws that apply (if applicable) for each requirement and by country, in accordance with the provisions of requirement 1.3.83 of the document Rules for CBs.
Lista de proyectos certificados
