{"id":23157,"date":"2023-03-29T11:26:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T10:26:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=23157"},"modified":"2023-03-29T11:26:16","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T10:26:16","slug":"at-chocolate-time-weve-discovered-what-the-brands-that-score-best-on-child-labour-and-the-environment-have-in-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/around-ou\/at-chocolate-time-weve-discovered-what-the-brands-that-score-best-on-child-labour-and-the-environment-have-in-common\/","title":{"rendered":"At chocolate time, we\u2019ve discovered what the brands that score best on child labour and the environment have in common"},"content":{"rendered":"

What distinguishes a company that makes \u201cgood\u201d chocolate (chocolate untainted by child labour, modern slavery, deforestation and the overuse of agrichemicals) from one that merely makes chocolate?<\/p>\n

Our annual\u00a0Chocolate Scorecard<\/a>\u00a0investigation, which is a collaboration between\u00a0Be Slavery Free<\/a>,\u00a0Macquarie University<\/a>,\u00a0The University of Wollongong<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Open University<\/a>, suggests it might be a mission that goes beyond making food and profit.<\/p>\n

Good eggs\u2019 trumpet ambition<\/h2>\n
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Only five of the 38 leading global chocolate makers we assessed received our green \u201cgood egg\u201d award for exemplary practices.<\/p>\n

They are the Netherlands-based\u00a0Original Beans<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Tony\u2019s Chocolonely<\/a>, Madagascar\u2019s\u00a0Beyond Good<\/a>, US-based\u00a0Alter Eco<\/a>, and Switzerland\u2019s\u00a0HALBA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Original Beans are at the forefront of Europe\u2019s artisan chocolate revolution. Its mission statement includes the words \u201cregenerate what you consume<\/a>\u201d. Its website asks its customers to \u201cheal the future, don\u2019t steal it<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tony\u2019s Chocolonely has as its\u00a0mission<\/a>\u00a0making slave-free chocolate and turning all chocolate slave-free.<\/p>\n

It says 60% of the world\u2019s cocoa comes from 2.5 million farms in West Africa that are placed under the kind of pricing pressure that leads to child labour and modern slavery. The average cocoa farmer earns less than US$1.20 per day, and women cocoa farmers are thought to earn around 50 cents per day.<\/p>\n

\u2018Broken eggs\u2019 say little<\/h2>\n

At the other end of the scale, firms such as\u00a0Unilever<\/a>\u00a0(which makes Magnum icecreams) and\u00a0Mond\u0113lez<\/a>\u00a0(which makes Cadbury) were awarded \u201cbroken eggs\u201d for not engaging with the survey.<\/p>\n

Mond\u0113lez<\/a>\u00a0describes its mission as going \u201cthe extra mile to lead the future of snacking around the world\u201d, rather than tackling environmental or social concerns.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long way from Cadbury\u2019s original mission. Founder John Cadbury was a Quaker \u201cdriven by a passion for social reform<\/a>\u201d who helped found the forerunner to the\u00a0Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals<\/a>\u00a0and planned a \u201cmodel village<\/a>\u201d for his workers including schools, shops, parks and childcare.<\/p>\n

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Cadbury founder John Cadbury.<\/span>\u00a0Cadbury<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2022, Britain\u2019s\u00a0Channel 4<\/a>\u00a0broadcast undercover footage from Ghana purporting to show children as young as 10 barefoot, wearing shorts and T-shirts, using machetes to harvest cocoa pods and sharpened sticks to extract beans that were eventually used in Cadbury chocolate.<\/p>\n

Mondel\u0113z said it was\u00a0deeply concerned<\/a>. It explicitly prohibited child labour and had been making significant efforts to improve the protection of children in the communities where it sourced cocoa, including Ghana.<\/p>\n

If such efforts are afoot,\u00a0Chocolate Scorecard<\/a>\u00a0would like to hear about them.<\/p>\n

\u2018Rotten eggs\u2019 can improve<\/h2>\n
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Among those companies that did respond, there are signs of improvement. In 2020,\u00a0Godiva<\/a>\u00a0received a \u201crotten egg\u201d award for \u201cfailing to take responsibility for the conditions with which its chocolates are made despite making huge profits off its chocolate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Godvia<\/a>\u00a0now says it is dedicated to \u201ca sustainable and thriving cocoa industry where farmers prosper, communities are empowered, human rights are respected, and the environment is conserved\u201d.<\/p>\n

It has earned an \u201corange\u201d rating, demonstrating that progress is achievable.<\/p>\n

Similarly,\u00a0S\u00fccden<\/a>\u00a0– a previous red \u201crotten egg\u201d – improved to yellow in this year\u2019s scorecard.<\/p>\n

Nestl\u00e9\u2019s inclusion in this years top ten gives us hope.<\/p>\n

It now says its\u00a0purpose<\/a>\u00a0is to \u201cunlock the power of food to enhance quality of life for everyone, today and for generations to come\u201d.<\/p>\n

Companies require profits to survive. But if profit and making chocolate are their only drivers, they are likely to hurt people and the environment while doing it.<\/p>\n

This Easter it is possible to support firms that are making profits without hurting the planet or its inhabitants. Our scorecard finds there are more and more of them.<\/p>\n

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Read more:\u00a0Want to buy guilt-free Easter chocolate? Pick from our list of ‘good eggs’ that score best for the environment and child labour<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What distinguishes a company that makes \u201cgood\u201d chocolate (chocolate untainted by child labour, modern slavery, deforestation and the overuse of agrichemicals) from one that merely makes chocolate? Our annual\u00a0Chocolate Scorecard\u00a0investigation, which is a collaboration between\u00a0Be Slavery Free,\u00a0Macquarie University,\u00a0The University of Wollongong\u00a0and the\u00a0Open University, suggests it might be a mission that goes beyond making food and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":23159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,19,22],"tags":[340,443,752,863,874,1525,1640,1643,2200,2243],"class_list":["post-23157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-around-ou","category-business-law","category-ou-speaks-out","category-university-news","tag-cadbury","tag-chocolate-scorecard","tag-easter","tag-fairtrade","tag-fbl","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-ou-news","tag-the-conversation","tag-tonys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}