1. What is Bonsucro?
Bonsucro was born out of the Better Sugarcane Initiative, a global multi-stakeholder non-profit organisation dedicated to reducing the environmental and social impacts of sugar cane production which links its name to a product, process or service that has been certified by an independent certification body as being in compliance with the Bonsucro standard. It is the first global metric standard for sugar cane.
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3. What is the vision of Bonsucro?
To be a leader in driving the market demand for certified sugar cane produced against sustainable standards.
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4. What is the mission of Bonsucro?
Bonsucro aims to improve the social, environmental, and economic sustainability of sugar cane by
promoting the use of a global metric standard, with the aim of continuously improving sugar cane
production and downstream processing in order to contribute to a more sustainable future.
· Bonsucro was set up to develop a Standard for sugar cane
· Bonsucro will also drive demand for the standard (by providing it to the marketplace and promoting it)
· Provides an industry forum – encouraging openness and discussion of the issues that need to be
resolved in order to achieve transformation
· To motivate members to use and promote the standard and the intent behind it
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5. Why a sustainable initiative for the sugar cane industry?
Consumers, NGO’s and governmental institutions expect more and more that the products they buy are responsibly produced. Like other agricultural sectors, the sugar cane sector is facing social and environmental challenges. The members of Bonsucro believe that an independent mainstream certification program is an important tool to address these challenges.
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6. What is sustainability in the sugar cane industry?
Better practices on farm field level and transparency in the supply chain will lead to a more sustainable sugar cane industry. The Bonsucro standard is a tool which addresses the five biggest social and environmental impacts from sugar cane: legal compliance, biodiversity and ecosystem impacts, human rights, production and processing, and continuous improvement.
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7. What are the sustainability pillars of the Bonsucro standard?
Bonsucro focuses on issues in the sugar cane production in five categories:
1. Legal compliance
2. Biodiversity and ecosystem impacts
3. Human rights
4. Production and processing
5. Continuous improvement
Key indicators for each of these categories have been identified to ensure that the Bonsucro standard
addresses the most significant issues.
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8. Bonsucro is a member of the ISEAL Alliance, what does that mean?
The ISEAL Alliance is the global association for social and environmental standards. ISEAL builds an understanding of good practices for standards systems and sets internationally applicable good practice guidance for the implementation of credible standards systems. Bonsucro is an Associate Member of the ISEAL Alliance and is following the ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards and the Impacts Code.
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9. What makes the Bonsucro standard a credible standard?
Bonsucro is a collaboration of sugar retailers, end-users (companies who purchase sugar and derived products) investors, traders, producers and NGO’s who are committed to sustainable sugar production by establishing principles and criteria that are applied in the sugar cane growing regions of the world. By bringing numerous stakeholders together, all with differing perspectives, to develop and comment on the Standard, Bonsucro was able to develop a platform that offered a multi-sector perspective. In addition, Bonsucro was able to pilot the standard in a variety of places to ground truth that the better management practices drove transformational and measurable change on the ground.
To achieve this as many stakeholders as possible were encouraged to comment on the Standard and Bonsucro embarked on a series of global Stakeholder Outreach Meetings, engaging in face-to-face, field and factory meetings with producers and small-scale growers in: Australia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, East Africa, South Africa, India, the European Union and Switzerland. Over the same period, an auditor conducted pilot studies using the Standard in Australia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, South Africa and India. The results of these audits gave a representative view of typical mill and field indicator values. These values have been factored into the Standard.
The Bonsucro standard addresses the five biggest social and environmental impacts from sugar cane: legal compliance, biodiversity and ecosystem impacts, human rights, production and processing, and continuous improvement. Key indicators for each of these categories have been identified to ensure that the Bonsucro standardaddresses the most significant issues.
In addition, Bonsucro complies with ISEAL specifications. The ISEAL Alliance is the global association for social and environmental standards. ISEAL builds an understanding of good practices for standards systems and sets internationally applicable good practice guidance for the implementation of credible standards systems.
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10. How does this standard relate to other sustainability initiatives in agriculture?
The Bonsucro standard is the first ever metric based standard developed for an agricultural feedstock. The continued development of the Standard will enable the provision of a clear set of principles, criteria, indicators and verifiers which collectively amount to set of metrically measurable targets which will enable sugar cane producers, processers and suppliers to improve their social and environmental operations. Bonsucro is a mainstream initiative using a demand driven approach and aims to be complementary to other sustainability initiatives in agriculture and specifically in sugar cane.
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11. How is Bonsucro a mainstream programme?
The Bonsucro programme is a mainstream model, which means that it is compatible with the existing market structure and aims for improvement that is realistic to expect for a significant market share through a credible and meaningful standard.
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12. What is the impact of the Bonsucro program?
By helping sugar cane producers implement good agricultural practices and farm management, they become better farmers. This results in increased yield, better quality, less impact on the environment, better social working circumstances and a more efficient way of production, leading to an increased income.
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13. When will Bonsucro certified sugar be available?
Bonsucro anticipates that certified sugar will be available for purchase in April 2011.
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14. Why did the Better Sugar Cane Initiative change its name to Bonsucro?
The Better Sugar Cane Initiative was a body set up to reduce the environmental and social impacts of sugar cane and design the best programme to transform the sugar industry. Initially established as an industry initiative, it has worked for the last five years to develop the platform, bring together all stakeholders and develop a way to transform the sugar business.
In November 2010, the Better Sugarcane Initiative has reached an important milestone in its development. The Initiative has done its work, and is ready to fully launch the organisation that will deliver the certification programme to the market as it sets out to transform the sugar cane sector.
To make its vision as accessible as possible to the marketplace and consumers, Bonsucro provides the organization with the strong, simple and globally usable brand identity required to secure a sustainable future for the sugar cane industry.
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