Following the Frog to a Sustainable Future

Animals show us just how beautiful interconnectedness can be; like when Klepetan the stork journeyed between South Africa and Croatia for twenty years to be with his injured partner, who couldn’t make the trip with him. Or when Magic the gentoo penguin lost his mate of six years at the Sydney Zoo and the entire penguin community joined together in song to mourn his passing. The deep connections and commitments they forge are something we seriously respect about our co-habitants—something we think our species could learn a lot from.

There’s another animal working hard to tell this story: the Rainforest Alliance’s iconic tree frog. From September 26 through October 3 we’ll be celebrating Follow the Frog, a global event honoring the certification’s wide range of standards, practices, and requirements, covering social and environmental issues, that we’re proud to support.

We'll be cheering for things like rigorous standards for gender equality, or cooperation between farms, governments, and supply chain partners to solve challenges together. Or their commitment to living wages by “help[ing] certified farmers and supply chain actors discover and bridge the gap between prevailing wages and living wages of agricultural workers.”

And it isn’t just people that are empowered by the Rainforest Alliance program. The planet gets a boost too, through provisions like “requir[ing] farmers to increase native tree cover… to ensure that farming not only has a minimal negative impact, but that it also generates positive impacts on biodiversity, climate, and the long-term sustainability of the landscape,” and “...offer[ing farmers] techniques for how to protect, conserve, and rehabilitate natural ecosystems and biodiversity on and around farms.” In other words, Rainforest Alliance sets a sustainability standard that treats the land and the people who work it as loved ones: with regard, care, and support.

Our partners around the world are working with Rainforest Alliance: from South Africa to Guatemala, Rwanda to Sri Lanka, our community is committed to continuous improvement in our shared sustainability journey.

Rainforest Alliance isn’t just a stamp on a box; it’s a promise to you and to the planet to keep doing better— over and over and over again. This Follow the Frog week, we hope you’ll brew one of our Rainforest Alliance-certified teas and celebrate your relationship to Nature.