Five Years of Cocoa Life: 2017 Progress Report

The 2017 Progress Report demonstrates how, five years in, Cocoa Life is making a difference on its journey to create a vibrant cocoa supply chain while transforming the lives and livelihoods of cocoa farmers and their communities.

Our Cocoa Life approach continues to be crucial in helping these communities address the dynamic and complex challenges they face—all of which are interrelated and demand a holistic approach to solve. We’ve continued to empower cocoa farmers and their communities by focusing on the areas where we can have the greatest impact. Fighting climate change so that future generations can inherit fertile land has been core to our program since 2012. This year, we continued this commitment by embarking on new partnerships to fight deforestation. We also implemented systems to help eliminate child labor, elevated the voices of women and more - it's been a tremendous year.

By the end of 2017, we grew our sustainably sourced cocoa by 14 percentage points to 35% of our global needs. In fact, our Cadbury brand throughout the UK and Ireland began sourcing Cocoa Life cocoa. We also reached 120,500 farmers (+31% from 2016) in 1,085 communities (+26% from 2016). This year’s report details how we’re connecting both ends of the supply chain – from the cocoa farmers to the consumers who enjoy our chocolate, as well as key accomplishments across our five focus areas and three cross-cutting themes.

"As I reflect on our ambitions, I’m proud of what we have accomplished. We are one of the largest chocolate makers in the world, and we’ve created a holistic and integrated program that not only has increased cocoa yields, but also has helped cocoa communities be one step closer to achieving sustainable livelihoods."

Cathy Pieters,
Director, Cocoa Life

We also made progress against key output indicators, which demonstrate how our interventions are making a difference. By the end of 2017, across Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia and Dominican Republic, Cocoa Life^*:

• Trained ~68,200 community members on Good Environmental Practices (+96%) and distributed 1+ million shade trees (+43%) to conserve ecosystems and farmland for future generations
• Mapped ~136,000 hectares of cocoa farms (+18%) to accurately measure productivity and farmers' proximity to protected forest areas, enabling us to take action against deforestation
• Trained 88,100+ farmers (+18%) and distributed ~5.8 million cocoa seedlings (+111%) to increase productivity and promote growth of higher quality cocoa
• Facilitated development of 1,000+ Community Action Plans (+21%), helping identify their needs and secure resources and public funding
• Provided ~52,000 community members (+131%), mostly women, with access to finance and improved financial literacy through 1,800+ operational Village Savings and Loan Associations (+51%)
• Established Child Protection Committees in 516 communities, building on our holistic interventions to tackle the root causes of child labor, and established Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation Systems in 137 communities (+43%)

^*percent increase reflects progress made compared to end of 2016

"By building a strong, on-the-ground presence in major cocoa-producing regions, and by engaging individual smallholders and global traders across its supply chain, Mondelēz’s Cocoa Life program begins to address the systemic issues facing the industry and have a positive impact on workers, communities, and the environment."

David McLaughlin,
Senior Advisor strategy, Conservation International

As we reflect on the progress made in our first five years, we are inspired by each Cocoa Life community and are committed to working closely with our partners to continue to support them. Cocoa Life will continue to create a sustainable future for cocoa.