MPS and Fairtrade sign cooperation agreement

CEO Daan de Vries attended the trade fair on behalf of MPS and signed the agreement together with Annette Billharz, Global Product Manager Flowers & Plants at Fairtrade International. “This cooperation offers excellent opportunities to make sustainability trends among Fairtrade and MPS-certified companies transparent and to improve the efficiency of double certification, thereby making it quicker and easier for growers to become more sustainable”, said De Vries.

The cooperation encompasses two main projects:

• Data reporting from MPS-ABC to Fairtrade (with the consent of participating companies) in order to gain insight into the trends taking place in the use of crop protection agents, fertilisers and energy.
• Companies that are MPS-ABC and Fairtrade certified will be asked to have their footprint calculated using the HortiFootprint Calculator and can choose to share the results with Fairtrade. This will give these growers a better individual picture of their own footprint and will provide Fairtrade and MPS with more insights into broader trends.

The cooperation also includes two secondary projects, which are not part of the signed agreement, but which will be further explored in the future:

• Investigate whether the lists of banned active substances of both organisations can be aligned more closely.
• Explore opportunities to have combined audits carried out by one certification body in the future or to enable partial or full mutual recognition of standards.

With this agreement, MPS-ABC and Fairtrade participants have moved towards improving the sustainability of their operations and will gain a better understanding of their environmental performance and ways in which this can be further improved.

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