the Sustainable Coconut Charter
22 Principles & Ambitions towards
responsible rejuvenation
of the sector
A practical sustainability framework designed for the realities of coconut supply chains.
The Sustainable Coconut Charter (SCC) is a sector-specific sustainability framework developed by the Sustainable Coconut Partnership to help companies, producers and supply chain partners drive responsible rejuvenation, strengthen supply resilience, improve farmer livelihoods and build more transparent coconut supply chains.
Created through a multi-stakeholder process involving companies, producers, governments, NGOs and technical experts, the SCC reflects the issues that matter most to the future of the coconut sector.
The Charter outlines key focus areas, principles, and expected outcomes for the Partnership’s programs and supply chain management. Specifically, it aims to:
Explore the Charter’s principles and ambitions, and understand how they are translated into practical criteria through the Assurance System.
[Read the SCC Assurance System Guide]
[View the SCC Assurance System Documents]
Why the Coconut Sector Needs a Different Approach
Most sustainability standards were developed to work across multiple commodities, crops and production systems. The coconut sector faces a different reality.
Across many producing countries, the sector is confronted with:
-
Ageing tree stock
-
Low farm productivity
-
Limited replanting
-
Farmer income pressures
-
Youth disengagement from farming
-
Weak investment flows into farming communities
-
Fragmented smallholder supply chains
-
Long-term supply resilience risks
These challenges cannot be solved through good agricultural practices alone.
The Sustainable Coconut Charter was developed specifically to help the sector address these systemic challenges while remaining practical, scalable and accessible for smallholder-dominated supply chains.
What Makes the Sustainable Coconut Charter Different?
The SCC was built specifically around coconut-sector realities
-
Sector-Specific
Addresses issues unique to coconut production, including responsible rejuvenation, ageing tree stock, replanting, youth transition and supply resilience.
-
Designed for Smallholder Supply Chains
Built around the realities of fragmented coconut supply networks and the practical challenges faced by farmers, processors and buyers.
-
Progressive and Practical
Encourages continuous improvement and scalable action rather than relying solely on highly resource-intensive approaches.
-
Designed for Collective Impact
Provides a common framework that helps align companies, suppliers and stakeholders around shared sustainability goals.
How Does the Sustainable Coconut Charter Compare?
- Independent Benchmarking -
To help companies navigate the sustainability landscape, SCP commissioned Assurance Services International (ASI) to conduct an independent strategic benchmarking of the Sustainable Coconut Charter Assurance System against selected sustainability frameworks, including:
-
Rainforest Alliance
-
Fairtrade
-
EU Organic
-
Regenerative Organic Certified
-
Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA)
The purpose of the benchmarking is to explore how each sustainability system responds to the unique systemic challenges facing the coconut sector.
Download the benchmarking report
Key Observations and highlights from the Benchmark*:
✅ Strong Alignment with Coconut Sector Challenges
The benchmarking found that SCC is closely aligned with risks and priorities identified through SCP's Pulse of the Sector work, including responsible rejuvenation and supply resilience.
✅ Designed for Smallholder Realities
The SCC assurance approach was found to be particularly suited to fragmented coconut supply chains and the operational realities of smallholder systems.
✅ Direct Response to Responsible Rejuvenation
The benchmarking highlights SCC's emphasis on replanting, ageing tree stock, youth engagement, farm renewal and long-term sector sustainability.
✅ Sector-Specific Focus
The report identifies the value of a framework designed around coconut-sector priorities rather than broader multi-commodity approaches.
✅ Complementary to Existing Sustainability Systems
The benchmarking recognises the important contributions of established sustainability standards while highlighting where the SCC provides a distinct and complementary response tailored to coconut supply chains.
*The highlights presented on this page reflect selected findings relevant to the Sustainable Coconut Charter. The full report remains the authoritative source for the complete analysis and conclusions.
about the sustainable coconut charter
The Sustainable Coconut Charter was first launched in 2020 following extensive stakeholder consultations involving more than 100 organisations across the coconut value chain.
The Charter was revised through a multi-stakeholder review process and Version 2.0 was published in 2023.
Today, the Charter serves as the foundation of SCP's sustainability framework and assurance system, helping organisations align around a shared vision for responsible rejuvenation and sustainable coconut production.
The Sustainable Coconut Charter in numbers
100+
Organizations involved in its conception
7
Public and members consultations rounds
1
Origin Standard allowing verified claims of coconut products
1
verifying organization's overall performance on transparency and mobilization around responsible rejuvenation sustainable sourcing performance
development milstones
Adapting
sustainability
to farmers
and not
the other way
around
🌴🌱 Embracing a New Era of Assurance: Why It's Essential 🌱🌴
- Bali Indonesia, May 2024
Last autumn, we spearheaded the revision of the #SustainableCoconutCharter, rallying over 200 stakeholders from the industry and beyond adopting one common framework. the charter benefited from an alignment effort with the Principles of the "Accountability Framework"
Today, it is evolving into an innovative assurance system aimed at substantiating sustainability claims and championing companies as agents of change and sustainable trade partners.
"It's sobering to note that a staggering 99% of coconut volumes traded still does not support sustainable farming practices, perpetuating cycles of poverty among farmers.
The status quo underscores a critical need for market interventions that genuinely drive positive change." - Gregory Bardies, Executive Director, Sustainable Coconut Partnership
This is where the collective efforts of the Sustainable Coconut Partnership come into play:
Designed to catalyze genuine sustainability within the coconut industry, our approach fosters alignment and common ground among buyers, processors, cooperatives, and farmers alike. By providing a framework for progress at scale, we aim to break the cycle of unsustainable practices and uplift communities.
🥥 What sets the system apart?
The Assurance System development involved leading experts in coconut production and standard-setting with practical and on-the-ground experience engaging smallholders. It benefited from extensive consultations outside the partnership, and intends to align with international references such as the Accountability Framework and ISEAL standards to ensure robustness, completeness and best practices. A voluntary taskforce comprising companies within the Sustainable Coconut Partnership (SCP)—some of the industry’s top processors and buyers—brought practical, on-the-ground experience.
🌟 A Progressive Approach
The Assurance System adopts a grading approach with three claim levels. By design, this system promotes a culture of continuous improvement rather than enforcing rigid step-by-step progress or striving for perfection in coconuts’ long and complex supply chain.
This progressive framework empowers businesses to drive market transformation and gradually provide essential support across the supply chain, addressing the ongoing global challenges of traceability and transparency.
🌟Integrated Verification
Responsibility for applying the Assurance System is distributed across the supply chain. The application of the system is designed to encourage upstream stakeholders—farmers, cooperatives/traders, first points of processing, and other actors—to work collaboratively, rather than placing a disproportionate burden on farm groups to meet requirements.
By addressing this often-overlooked aspect of supply chain management in smallholder systems, we aim to create better pathways for investments to reach farmers, who are the backbone of the supply chain.
Our system focuses on a tailored set of practices for each actor in the chain. It ensures that assurance reports provide clear insights into the performance of each stakeholder within the system.
🌟 Coconut Specific Approach
In order to establish transparent, reliable metrics that are industry aligned, and focus on coconut specific issues, we conducted extensive research and consultations with experienced operators. This pointed to the need to go beyond a sole focus on agricultural practices and farm boundaries to solve systemic issues in the coconut sector.
Our system includes focusing on: replanting programmes, youth engagement, market prices transparency and key aspects of supply chain management and transparency in smallholder supply chains.
🌟 Volume and Performance Claims:
Our system will not only validate volume claims but also assess companies' performance levels in sustainability, recognizing verified actors as agents of change and sustainable trade partners. We’re in process of alignment against some of the best practices for sustainability systems.
🌟 Designed with operational profitability and economic sustainability in mind
To make the system more cost-effective and efficient, we considered how better-designed interventions, operational efficiency, and improved break-even projections could help operators maintain their verification status.
Our system incorporates features such as a grading approach, a lean and fit-for-purpose standard, and allowances for additional scopes like supply chain management and jurisdictional approaches. These elements aim to share responsibility for sustainability more equitably across the chain.
Active piloting of the standard by the Sustainable Coconut Partnership ensures that it remains adaptive and calibrated for operational profitability and economic sustainability. At the same time, it delivers credible, data-driven, and verified insights.
🌍✨Together, we're forging a path towards a more sustainable future for the coconut industry—one that prioritizes integrity, inclusivity, and progress vs aiming for the stars.
Join us in this transformative journey. Together, we can make a difference.
.png)
The new assurance system will be piloted by members in 2025
Karen Thyvia Lourdes, Global Sustainable Sourcing Leader, Sugar and Coconut, Nestlé
The V2 review cycle
The Sustainable Coconut Partnership launched an ambitious revision of the Sustainable Coconut Charter – the key market instrument to drive the coconut sector towards a more sustainable, more equitable and climate-friendly future.
The Partnership is initiating its first review cycle of the Charter’s principles and ambitions and the development of tools needed to help make supply chains ready for sustainable change.
The revision process brought together peer companies and other stakeholders to define shared goals and scale up sustainable supply chains at the sectoral level to:
-
Review and streamline areas of focus ensuring the comprehensiveness and relevance of the Sustainable Coconut Charter and its future assurance scheme.
-
Inform on the shape of the upcoming assurance scheme of the Sustainable Coconut Charter
-
Set a common criterion for a supply chain transparency & traceability in light of existing bottlenecks and loss of traceability to increase transparency by focusing on practical and achievable progress in a partnership spirit along the supply chains.
About
“The Sustainable Coconut Partnership believes in continuous improvement and getting progress. For this revision, we are undertaking a review of the current charter with the Accountability Framework in line with codes of good practices for voluntary standards, as well as a comprehensive review of industry practices to ensure we make a step towards progress versus thriving for perfection in a long, complex supply chain at a time where traceability is still a challenge in most origins globally”
Gregory Bardies, Executive Director, Sustainable Coconut Partnership
About the 2023 Sustainable Coconut Charter review
Sustainable Coconut Charter V1.0
Setting a global benchmark for sustainable coconut origins
(Version september 2020. Authors Natcha Tulyasuwan, Gregory Bardies, Binod Chapagain)
Back in 2019, the charter had been conceived as a guidance first, the verification element came later with the Version 2
