Fairtrade Standards Are Evolving, and Producers Have Been Asked for Their Input

Fairtrade is evolving its Standards to remain effective, credible and practical in a changing environment. The changes respond to key challenges, including increasing complexity in Fairtrade Standards, rising regulatory demands, growing risks for producer organizations affecting their productivity and livelihoods, and higher expectations from the market on how companies address risk in their supply chains. All of these factors mean that Fairtrade needs to evolve to stay relevant and competitive as the demands on certification shift and change rapidly.

Four key commitments run through the evolved Fairtrade Standards. Human rights and the environment have consistently been at the core of Fairtrade, and the Standards will continue to support them to the highest level. The evolved Standards adopt a risk-based approach, so that producer organizations can focus on meaningful actions and prioritise resources where they matter the most. They strengthen management systems at the producer level, because this is incredibly important in order to identify and address risks that are continuously changing. And they make the Standards consistent and user-friendly for everyone, reducing the number of Standards, streamlining requirements and reducing duplication.

The consultation, open from 24 June to 31 August 2026, is based on the revised principles-based framework and the proposed risk and results approach. It also includes changes that extend the scope of some requirements, to ensure a shared understanding of what is needed to implement them effectively. Responses are submitted through Fairtrade International's online consultation platform.

As the Producer Network for Asia and the Pacific, Fairtrade NAPP carries the views of farmers and workers across 20 countries into that process, alongside the two other regional Producer Networks, 25 national Fairtrade organizations and marketing organizations, and FLOCERT. The Colombo workshop on 21 and 22 July 2026 was one part of it, bringing together twelve management representatives, eight men and four women, from seven Fairtrade certified Hired Labour organizations:  

• Stassen Natural Foods (Idulgashina Bio Tea Garden),
• Horana Plantations PLC,
• Hatton Plantations PLC,
• Bogawantalawa Tea Estates PLC,
• Madulsima Plantations PLC,
• Kaley Natural Farms Pvt Ltd and
• Lumbini Tea Factory (Pvt) Ltd. 

Reading the Draft Requirement by Requirement

The first day was built around the General Survey and the second around the Test and Learn questionnaire, and in both cases participants moved through the proposed requirements one at a time rather than reviewing a summary. Fairtrade NAPP explained the purpose behind each clause and opened the floor to questions, so representatives could weigh what a requirement would mean for a working estate before deciding how to respond to it.

That pace paid off in the quality of the responses. Participants left with a clear picture of what StEP is trying to achieve, how the revised framework is structured, and how implementation is expected to work. Several representatives welcomed specific improvements in the draft, including a more streamlined standards framework, clearer referencing between documents, and a simpler structure that is easier to read and apply on an estate.

Comments Filed Before Anyone Left the Room

Fairtrade International's consultation runs through a digital platform, and written submissions are what count. Rather than leaving participants to navigate it afterwards, the workshop included a live demonstration of the platform and time set aside to complete the questionnaires on the spot, with facilitation available whenever a question came up.

Sri Lanka's Tea Sector Adds Its Experience to a Global Draft

Alongside the structured questionnaires, participants used the two days to share the operational experience they bring from running Fairtrade certified tea estates: how management systems work day to day, how estates already organize assessment and reporting for the certifications they hold, and how services in plantation communities are delivered today. All of it was entered into the Opinion tabs of the consultation questionnaires with the reasoning attached.

That kind of input is exactly what a consultation stage is designed to gather. Because the Sri Lankan tea sector has its own history and structure, its perspective adds something no other market can, and having it recorded now means the drafting team can weigh it while the standards are still taking shape. Participants asked that these country-level realities be given due consideration through the review, and welcomed the chance to put them forward directly rather than through intermediaries.

A Producer Network Role That Works in Both Directions

Much of the value of the two days came from Fairtrade NAPP sitting between the draft and the estates and translating in both directions. Facilitators unpacked the intent behind proposed requirements in plain terms, so representatives were responding to what a clause is meant to achieve rather than to unfamiliar wording. In the other direction, NAPP is compiling the country-specific observations raised in Colombo and submitting them to Fairtrade International as a consolidated contribution from Sri Lanka's Hired Labour sector.

This is what a Producer Network is for within the Fairtrade system, where farmers and workers hold 50 percent of the decision-making power. Standards are stronger when the organizations that implement them have read the draft closely and said what works, and NAPP's role is to make sure that route from an estate in Sri Lanka to a drafting table in Bonn stays open and is actually used.

Workers Take the Next Turn to Speak

Management representatives were clear that their submissions are only one half of the Hired Labour picture. They agreed to facilitate and support a separate consultation for worker representatives within their own organizations, so that workers read the draft standards and submit their own views directly rather than having them relayed. Fairtrade NAPP will run that workshop during August 2026, ahead of Fairtrade International's consultation deadline.

Bringing worker representatives into the same process reflects the direction the evolved standards are heading, with stronger worker participation in how Fairtrade is implemented on estates. Participants in Colombo discussed what would make that work well in practice, including practical training and guidance and a phased approach that gives worker committees time to grow into new responsibilities, and those suggestions have gone into the consultation record alongside everything else.

Voices from the Consultation

Participants raised their views collectively during facilitated discussion, and these have been recorded in the Opinion tabs of the consultation questionnaires and in the country observations Fairtrade NAPP is compiling for Fairtrade International. Across all seven organizations, representatives asked that country-specific realities in the Sri Lankan tea sector be given due consideration during the standards review, and welcomed the opportunity to make that case directly rather than through intermediaries.

A Contribution That Spans the Fairtrade System

Colombo was one workshop among many. Across the Asia Pacific region, Fairtrade NAPP is running consultations with smallholder farmer organizations, Hired Labour organizations and contract production setups, covering tea, coffee, rice, cotton, sugar, fresh fruit and more. The same exercise is under way through CLAC in Latin America and the Caribbean and through Fairtrade Africa, alongside national Fairtrade organizations, traders and FLOCERT.

The evolved standards will carry all of it. What makes StEP different from a technical update is that the revision is being built with the people it governs, sector by sector and region by region, and the Hired Labour sector in Sri Lanka has now placed its contribution firmly within that collective effort.

What Happens Next

Fairtrade NAPP is compiling the country observations and discussion points from the Colombo consultation and submitting them to Fairtrade International as a consolidated contribution from Sri Lanka's tea sector, ahead of the consultation's closing date of 31 August 2026.

From there the timeline is set. The consultation closes at the end of August, the evolved Fairtrade Standards are due to be published in 2027, and certification against them begins in 2028. Fairtrade NAPP will continue to work alongside Sri Lanka's tea organizations through that transition, and the contribution made in Colombo becomes part of a revision shaped by farmers, workers and producer organizations across the Fairtrade system.