Imagine that the fair trade organic pineapple in the supermarket is suddenly cheaper than the conventionally produced fruit. At first you don't trust the price tag, but at second glance it becomes clear that the price of the organic fruit does not only refer to the cultivation and transport costs. It also takes into account the lower consequential costs for social and environmental damage of the more sustainably grown fruit. Because if the costs for ecological and social damage are included, then organically produced pineapple is much cheaper than conventionally grown pineapple in monoculture. And in the end, it is the price that guides most of our purchasing decisions...

Unfortunately, the reality is different. The supposedly more favourable price of conventionally produced pineapples is a lie: it conceals the costs of the environmental damage caused by their cultivation. So far, the costs for this consequential damage have not been included in any company's balances and are therefore not inluded in the supermarket prices. But who pays for the groundwater contamination caused by chemical and synthetic pesticides used in conventional food cultivation? How much will the loss of biodiversity caused by this use of pesticides cost us in the long term? How much social cost will accumulate if exploitative child labour continues to be used to keep cultivation costs "low"? Although our current price calculations enable companies to achieve economic growth, we are destroying our foundations in the process. We are not adding value, but "adding damaging" to our resources.

We are committed to ensuring that the true costs of food are already taken into account and made visible during its production. These so-called externalised social and environmental costs are real and should be included in the companies' balances:
This would mean that the prices of all food in the supermarket would reflect the real costs and benefits of its production. Wouldn't tha be fantastic?

In the supermarket, consumers often think they are buying the cheaper products when they choose conventionally grown foods. However, the direct price at the counter is followed by indirect costs: for example, for drinking water that has been cleaned of pesticides and is therefore more expensive, for health damage caused by nitrogen oxides or for offsetting the consequences of the climate crisis. In order to conserve our finite resources, it is therefore important to minimise the social and ecological costs, i.e. the true costs of products. How can we achieve this?

Coffee is one of the most important farming products of the Global South. It is also among the drinks consumed most frequently in Germany. However, the market price only insufficiently represents the real costs along the supply chain. The True Cost Alliance has researched the hidden environmental and social externalities of supply chains of coffee from Uganda and Honduras and translates the results into corporate accounting frameworks.

We are therefore advocating for mandatory true cost accounting for environmental, social and health impacts. It is clear that the calculations for the actual costs and benefits are currently often only estimates. More precise scientific calculations, including those of the University of Nuremberg, already exist, but need to be developed further in the future.

The past has shown that voluntary measures on the part of industry are not enough to produce food in an ecologically and socially sustainable way. In order to bring about real change, true cost accounting must therefore be applied on a mandatory basis not only in the food industry, but ultimately in all sectors of the economy. This is the only way to achieve a fundamental transformation of our economic system towards greater sustainability and fairness.

As a non-governmental organisation, we are committed to ensuring that fair trade instruments serve as a guideline for the legal regulation of international value chains: these include the ban on unfair trading practices, minimum prices, human rights due diligence obligations, liability regulations and complaints mechanisms, as well as a commitment to long-term supply relationships in particularly risky supply chains.