• 3 Stars: No critical products. Only uncritical (from non-rainforest land) or certified.
• 2 Stars: Contains certified and critical products. Or only ceritified which do not explicitly protect from deforestation.
• 1 Star : Contains critical products which destroy the rainforest.

Critical ingredient

We defined “critical ingredients”, thus ingredients where their production is known to cause tropical rainforest deforestation. The critical ingredients are

• Palm oil
• Soy
• Animal products: beef meat, pork meat, chicken meat, egg, milk products (because they are fed with soy)
• Fish from fish farms (because they are fed with soy)

We accept labels that guarantee through their certification that no tropical rainforest was cut, as well as producers that have shown a high commitment to guarantee no deforestation.

Labels

We have a list of labels with regulations prohibiting tropical rainforest deforestation. For example, Bio Suisse prohibits clear-cutting of areas of high conservation values such as primary forests, valuable secondary forests or savannas for agriculture, unless they were deforested before 1994 (Bio Suisse Richtlinien 2017). Most organic labels have such regulations. There are also labels that have this regulation but are not necessarily organic. The current label list is based on the work of Stiftung Pusch in collaboration with Helvetas, Stiftung für Konsumentenschutz and WWF Schweiz (www.labelinfo.ch) and will be continuously updated.

Labels with clear requirements to protect high conservation value areas:

Bio Suisse, Coop Naturaplan, Rain Forest Alliance certified,Max Havelaar Small Producer Organizations, Max Havelaar Hired labour, Max Havelaar Cocoa, Migros Bio Ausland + Max Havelaar, UTZ certified multi-group (cacao, coffee + tea, trace palm oil and cotton,NO PALMOIL), UTZ certified individual and multi-site (dito), Claro, Spar Natur pur Ausland, Aldi Natur Aktiv Ausland + EU Bio + Max Havelaar, Demeter, Naturland (only rainforest and primary forests considered, other high conservation value areas not specified)

Labels that do not specify requirements:

Migros Bio Ausland (only if in combination with Max Havelaar), EU Bio, AB Agriculture Biologique, Biotrend Ausland, Aldi Natur Aktiv Ausland / EU Bio (but ok if in combination with Max Havelaar, see above), USDA Organic has also no regulation (Personal communication (email): Joan F. Avila, Secretary, National Organic Program, US Department of Agriculture, Washington DC, 7.3.2018. Not evaluated in the PUSCH Label comparison).

Origin

For all critical ingredients without certification, we define if the origin country is problematic or not.

Soy

Soy is produced in most countries of the world (FAOSTAT), but ca 80% in US, Brasil, Argentina. Soy production is increasing in Europe and is obviously never problematic for tropical forests. We, therefore, defined for each country if the soy production there is critical or not, and also if the soy is uncertified.