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EFT is a fair trade guarantee system designed to allow operators to enhance the value of their commitment and gain consumer confidence, in a sector that is growing rapidly but is also seeking credibility.

The EFT system sets out the conditions for effective third party inspection (this inspection is carried out by a recognised, independent certification organisation).

An “all purpose” set of standards

EFT applies to a wide range of products (food-processing, cosmetics, textiles) without restrictions on geographical areas or on the nature of the raw materials. Beyond this “all purpose” aspect, the system’s flexibility also applies to the operator’s commitment. If the entire commodity chain is affected by the inspection and control principle, each operator, that is, each “link” can commit themselves separately during this commodity chain’s construction process.

Commitment, costs and deadlines

On request, ECOCERT will send out a set of documents clearly outlining the principles of the approach and its operational implementation. Subject to fulfilling the eligibility conditions, the first stage of your commitment consists of submitting: a questionnaire that establishes your quote (document to be downloaded) filled in with as much detail as possible to describe your situation; a description of the commodity chain project in its current state.

The costs will be broken down into inspection costs and certification costs, and will be proportional to:
  the time spent by the inspector at the site;
  the geographical dispersion of the sites to be inspected;
  the number of sites; and
  the number of products to be certified.

A combined inspection (EFT + organic inspection according to whether the regulation is European, America or Japanese, or another inspection managed by ECOCERT) will optimise both costs and the time spent by the inspector.

(also see summary diagram of the certification stages)

How the standards came into being

The EFT tool was officially made available to operators in February 2007. In October 2007, ECOCERT became an “interim” member of the PFCE (French Platform for Fair Trade) following an audit, which recognised our legitimacy as a fair trade actor.

• The EFT standards list objective, measurable and quantifiable criteria.
• They were drafted over several months with the collaboration of a representative working group (full details on the EFT standards).
• The EFT standards conform to the key founding international principles of fair trade and incorporate aspects from several normative standards:
  • FINE Declaration
  • International Labour Organisation conventions
  • AFNOR Agreement AC X50-340
• The EFT standards have added to the principles of Fair Trade, however, by incorporating conditions on the transparency of the information given to the consumer, by applying a limit to the number of intermediaries involved and by moderating the profit margins along the commodity chain.