Fundación Natura has since 2000 developed the certification theme as a mechanism to promote the sustainable development and the conservation of the eco systems. Most of these activities have resulted in the trademark of certification “rainforest alliance”, which works for a productive, social, environmental and agricultural improvement, particularly for coffee and bananas. This certification has consolidated as “Certificación Ambiental” (environmental certification) in Colombia.

The consolidation of these activities has given place to the Certification Office that transformed into a Subdivision of Certification in 2007. With this Fundación Natura hopes to complement the certification processes that it has developed to this date, with other elements that will permit to strengthen the instrument, such as the interaction with public policies, the implementation of certification in new sectors, the promotion of its use, the evaluation of impacts  and the continuous  improvement of certification services for our clients. In this way we want to continue to intensify the sustainable development of the Colombian farms.

To do that the Subdivision of Certification has executed the GEF conservation project for biodiversity of coffee in Colombia, in which five other countries participate. (Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Peru) This project tries to “help out with the promotion of biodiversity friendly coffee on the international markets and generate benefits of the biodiversity to transform productive practices into Rainforest Alliance certificated farms”.

It is important to note that to develop the verification activities to grant the certification, they obtained the technical norm ISO 9001:2000 in December of 2006; this certificate obtained by ICONTEC, guaranties the quality of the audit and the proceedings of the Rainforest Alliance certification network for sustainable agriculture.

Finally the subdivision is under permanent revision and evaluation of verification and certification so that its principles are according to the foundation’s mission to be able to extend their portfolios on the field.