UEBT Certified - Ethical Sourcing system

1. Assess eligibility and readiness: Review the UEBT Ethical BioTrade Standard to determine whether your organization's sourcing of natural ingredients from biodiversity qualifies. UEBT certification is designed for companies that source botanical, wild-harvested, or cultivated natural ingredients.

1. Become a UEBT member (optional but recommended): Many organizations join UEBT as members before pursuing certification. Membership provides access to tools, training resources, and guidance on implementing the Ethical BioTrade Standard.

1. Conduct an internal gap analysis: Map your current sourcing practices against the seven principles of the Ethical BioTrade Standard — covering biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, fair benefit sharing, socioeconomic sustainability, compliance with national and international law, respect for rights of actors, and clarity about land and resource rights.

1. Develop and implement an improvement plan: Address gaps identified in your internal assessment. This may involve updating supplier contracts, establishing biodiversity management plans, improving traceability systems, and formalizing benefit-sharing arrangements with local communities.

1. Select an accredited certification body: Choose a third-party certification body that is accredited and approved by UEBT to conduct audits against the Ethical BioTrade Standard. UEBT maintains a list of approved certification bodies on its website.

1. Undergo the certification audit: The accredited certification body will conduct a document review and on-site audit of your sourcing operations, supplier relationships, and internal management systems. Auditors may visit sourcing sites and interview staff and suppliers.

1. Address corrective actions (if required): If the audit identifies non-conformities, you will need to implement corrective actions within a specified timeframe before certification can be granted.

1. Receive UEBT Certification and maintain compliance: Once certified, your organization is listed in the public UEBT registry and may use the UEBT label. Maintain certification through periodic surveillance audits and renewal cycles, typically every three years.

UEBT Certification evaluates organizations against the Ethical BioTrade Standard, which is structured around seven core principles derived from the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and related international frameworks. Each principle encompasses multiple criteria and indicators that auditors assess through documentation review, site visits, and stakeholder interviews.

Principle 1 – Conservation of Biodiversity: Auditors evaluate whether the organization's sourcing activities actively support the conservation of biodiversity in sourcing landscapes, including protection of threatened species and ecosystems, and integration of biodiversity considerations into sourcing decisions.

Principle 2 – Sustainable Use of Biodiversity: This covers whether harvesting and cultivation practices maintain the long-term viability of wild populations and agricultural biodiversity, including harvest volume controls, regeneration monitoring, and sustainable land management.

Principle 3 – Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits: Organizations must demonstrate that benefits derived from the use of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge are shared fairly with local communities and indigenous peoples, in line with the Nagoya Protocol.

Principle 4 – Socioeconomic Sustainability: Auditors assess whether sourcing practices contribute to the economic wellbeing of local communities, including fair pricing, living wages, and long-term supply relationships with smallholder farmers and collectors.

Principle 5 – Compliance with National and International Legislation: The organization must demonstrate compliance with all relevant laws governing biodiversity, labor, trade, and environmental protection in sourcing countries.

Principle 6 – Respect for the Rights of Actors Involved in Ethical BioTrade Activities: This principle covers labor rights, human rights, gender equity, and the rights of indigenous and local communities, including free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC).

Principle 7 – Clarity about Land and Resource Rights: Organizations must verify and document the legal status of land and resource access rights throughout their supply chains, ensuring sourcing does not contribute to land grabbing or dispossession.

Auditors also assess the organization's management systems, including traceability and chain of custody documentation, supplier monitoring programs, internal audit processes, and continuous improvement mechanisms.

UEBT occupies a specialized but highly credible niche in the ethical sourcing certification landscape, focused specifically on biodiversity-based natural ingredients — a space that has grown significantly in importance as global regulatory frameworks such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing have raised the stakes for companies sourcing from nature. UEBT certification is particularly well-regarded in the cosmetics, personal care, and natural products industries, where brands like Weleda, Natura &Co, L'Occitane, Clarins, and Givaudan have publicly committed to ethical sourcing through UEBT membership and certification.

The program is not as broadly adopted as mainstream certifications like Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade, but it is widely considered the most rigorous and comprehensive standard specifically addressing the intersection of biodiversity conservation, benefit sharing, and ethical supply chains. Its alignment with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol gives it particular relevance for companies navigating Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) compliance. As biodiversity-related disclosure requirements expand — including the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and forthcoming EU regulations — demand for UEBT certification is expected to grow among companies seeking credible, third-party verified biodiversity commitments.

The total number of certified organizations remains relatively modest (estimated in the low hundreds globally), reflecting the certification's rigorous requirements and its focus on a specific segment of the supply chain. However, the certified organizations tend to be influential brands and ingredient suppliers with significant market reach. UEBT also operates a membership program that serves as an on-ramp for companies working toward certification, broadening its overall ecosystem of engaged companies beyond formal certificate holders.

The Union for Ethical BioTrade (UEBT) was established in 2007 as a nonprofit association, with its certification program launching in 2008. It emerged from work by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) through its BioTrade Initiative, which had been promoting sustainable and equitable trade in biodiversity-based products since 1996. UEBT was created to give the BioTrade principles an independent institutional home and to develop a credible third-party certification mechanism for companies sourcing natural ingredients from biodiversity.

The Ethical BioTrade Standard — the foundation of UEBT certification — was developed through a multi-stakeholder process and is grounded in the seven BioTrade principles originally developed by UNCTAD, which in turn reflect the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity: conservation, sustainable use, and fair and equitable benefit sharing. A significant milestone came with the adoption of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing in 2010, which elevated the legal and commercial relevance of UEBT's benefit-sharing requirements. Over the years, UEBT has expanded its membership and certification base globally, attracting major cosmetics and natural products companies, and has developed complementary tools including the UEBT/UTZ Rainforest Alliance Herb & Spice Program. The organization continues to evolve its standard and services in response to growing regulatory and investor pressure around nature-related risks and biodiversity disclosure.