Certifying our commitment to sustainability

For nearly 30 years Mars has pursued a cocoa sustainability strategy with the goals to promote responsible cocoa production, and to secure future supplies of the crop. Our aim is for cocoa to thrive in harmony with the environment and to the benefit of the communities involved throughout its supply chain.

In April 2009 Mars, as the first global chocolate company, committed itself to buy only sustainably grown cocoa by 2020. In order to make the volumes needed available, we established a partnership with the Rainforest Alliance. This international not-for-profit organisation works to conserve biodiversity and sustainability by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. Our goal is to build toward Rainforest Alliance certification of 100,000 metric tonnes of cocoa, and to work with UTZ Certified to certify another 100,000 metric tonnes of cocoa, for use annually in 100% certified Mars products. As this is just a portion of our needs, we will also work with other certifiers to achieve our total goal by 2020.

Since the early 1990s, the Rainforest Alliance has helped more than 30,000 family farms and cooperatives in 22 tropical countries achieve a high standard of sustainable agriculture – in partnership with Mars, these figures are set to grow significantly.

To learn more, please visit http://www.cocoasustainability.mars.com/