The Rainforest Alliance is an international nonprofit organization working at the intersection of business, agriculture, and forests to drive positive change through certification and partnerships. Founded in 1987 by Daniel Katz and headquartered in New York City, with regional offices across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the Rainforest Alliance is best known internationally for its green frog certification seal — one of the most recognized sustainability labels in the world.
The Rainforest Alliance works with more than 7.9 million farmers and workers across 6 million certified hectares of farmland, with priority crops including cocoa, coffee, tea, and bananas. The certification program addresses the fact that farming causes nearly 80% of global deforestation, with the organization’s new Regenerative Agriculture Standard — launched in 2025 — representing a major evolution beyond “do less harm” to active landscape restoration. Beyond certification, the Alliance invests directly in forest protection, smallholder livelihoods, and climate adaptation projects, with more than US$394 million deployed since 2003 across 25 million hectares of impact projects.
The Rainforest Alliance engages with IUCN on forest landscape restoration, sustainable agriculture, and the Convention on Biological Diversity. The organization’s reach into global commodity supply chains gives it a unique lever to translate conservation standards into market realities, and its certification system is one of the most widely adopted sustainability frameworks in the tropics.
