Why fair-trade is the cornerstone of regenerative farming...

After gaining fair-trade certification for its Shea products in 2009, L’OCCITANE en Provence has been awarded 100% fair-trade certification of its Verbena, Rose, and Cade collections through the Fair for Life program.  

These certifications, awarded in 2023, formalize our brand’s longstanding commitment to helping producers to embrace new farming practices – and we plan to achieve fair-trade certifications for all the brand’s iconic product lines by 2025.   We previously only worked toward fair-trade certification in developing countries, however now we’re pursuing it for French ingredients too – as a testament to the value we place on our local producers, as we help them to face their own economic and environmental challenges.  

As a Group, we’re proud to say that Fair-trade certification for the Verbena, Rose, and Cade collections comes as the result of longstanding partnerships with family-run farms, relationships built on confidence, transparency, and durability. The certifications may mean adhering to strict and binding criteria, but they also represent the essential cornerstone of regenerative farming, which is based on agricultural methods that are productive, while also respecting people and the environment. For L’OCCITANE, this approach is the only way to ensure farms remain profitable in the face of climate change, while protecting and regenerating biodiversity and safeguarding the future of generations to come. We decided early on to support farming pioneers who recognized the need to reinvent themselves and find a way out of the ecological and economic deadlock of agricultural practices which ignored the needs of the living world.  

We hope our ambition to gain Fair-Trade certifications for all L’OCCITANE en Provence’s iconic ingredients by 2025 is testament to our determination to contribute to a systemic overhaul of farming, guaranteeing a sustainable future for its producers and recognizing the key role they have to play as the driving force behind change.