How-to Guide

How To Talk About Your Work With the Rainforest Alliance

Filed Under: Marketing Sustainability

First you walk the walk, and then you talk the talk.

Knowing how to talk about your company’s sustainability commitments and partnership with the Rainforest Alliance is key for your audiences to understand the hard work you’re doing to make a difference for people and the planet. To get you started, we’ve included a variety of Rainforest Alliance key messages below. Please feel free to use them on your promotional materials or product packaging to share your company’s sustainability journey.

Want to adapt this messaging to your own brand voice? Consider these six basic guidelines. They will help you to communicate about your sustainability commitments credibly, transparently, and more effectively. 

Then, check out our Translation Guide, which features approved translations of commonly used terms you can use when referring to Rainforest Alliance Certified products. 

The Rainforest Alliance needs to review and approve any mention of us on your packaging and in your promotional materials. For questions or support, please contact our Customer Success team.

Although we provide recommendations on language related to sustainability claims, your company is responsible for the accuracy and credibility of all text claims made on your materials (e.g. ensuring they reflect the level of traceability of your supply chains) and making sure such text claims otherwise comply with applicable laws.

About working with the Rainforest Alliance

About the Rainforest Alliance

  • The Rainforest Alliance is working to solve some of the most pressing social and environmental issues of our time—including the climate crisis—by changing the way the world produces and consumes food. When you choose Rainforest Alliance Certified [crop], you are supporting a better future for people and nature. www.rainforest-alliance.org 
  • The Rainforest Alliance is an international non-profit organization that is creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities. www.rainforest-alliance.org 
  • Together with an alliance of farmers, businesses, consumers and more, the Rainforest Alliance is working to restore the balance between people and nature so they both thrive together in harmony. www.rainforest-alliance.org 
  • By bringing diverse allies together, the Rainforest Alliance protects forests, improves the livelihoods of farmers and forest communities, promotes their human rights, and helps them mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis in bold and effective ways. www.rainforest-alliance.org
  • Rainforest Alliance Certified [crop] means…
    • Climate
      …training farmers to adapt to and prepare for the impacts of climate change through sustainable and regenerative growing practices.  
    • Forests and biodiversity
      …promoting sustainable land management practices to protect and restore tropical forests and biodiversity in some of the world’s most critically important landscapes.
    • Human rights
      …addressing human rights abuses head on, from child and forced labor, to poor working conditions, and gender inequality.
    • Livelihoods
      … contributing to lifting rural people out of poverty by building sustainable livelihood opportunities for farmers, workers, and their families
    • Learn more at www.rainforest-alliance.org. 

Using the Rainforest Alliance seal

  • The Rainforest Alliance seal stands for a better future for people and nature. The Rainforest Alliance trains farmers to use growing methods that help improve crop yields while protecting the environment. These methods include natural pest management and better pruning practices. Learn more by visiting www.rainforest-alliance.org. 
  • The Rainforest Alliance seal means that farmers follow practices that protect forests, improve their livelihoods, promote human rights of farm workers, and help them mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. To learn more about the Rainforest Alliance, visit www.rainforest-alliance.org.
  • The Rainforest Alliance seal means that [crop] is grown using methods that help create a better future for people and nature. To learn more about the Rainforest Alliance, visit www.rainforest-alliance.org.
  • When you buy [brand/product] with the Rainforest Alliance seal, you are supporting a better future for people and nature. Find out more at www.rainforest-alliance.org.

For more information, link to our article “What Does “Rainforest Alliance Certified” Mean?” 

General Messaging Tips

If you want to create your own narrative inspired by our templates, here are a few general messaging tips to keep in mind:

We are the Rainforest Alliance

  • Always use our full name: the Rainforest Alliance. Never RFA, RA or any other abbreviation.
  • Never capitalize “the” unless it’s the beginning of a sentence.
  • Do not translate the name “Rainforest Alliance”. 

Rainforest Alliance Certified

  • Always capitalize “Certified” in “Rainforest Alliance Certified.
  • Translations are allowed of the word Certified only.

Our website URL

  • On websites and other longer content pieces, please display and link to our full website URL www.rainforest-alliance.org.
  • On packaging and other materials where space is limited, the short URL versions may be used: www.ra.org or ra.org. 

Messaging for the European Union

Companies doing business in the EU market should consider the EU Empowering Consumers Directive, which goes into effect on September 27, 2026, and bans the following practices:

  • Making a generic environmental claim for which the trader is not able to demonstrate recognized excellent environmental performance relevant to that claim.
  • Making an environmental claim about the entire product or the trader’s entire business when it concerns only a certain aspect of the product or a specific activity of the trader’s business.
  • Presenting requirements imposed by law on all products within the relevant product category on the EU market as a distinctive feature of the trader’s offer.

Companies operating in the EU may also want to anticipate the proposed EU Green Claims Directive, which may introduce very strict requirements for making comparative claims. With this in mind, we recommend that companies don’t make claims stating or implying a comparison between certified and non-certified farms or products.

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