With the Accountability Framework, companies gain a roadmap to act on deforestation, ecosystems, and human rights.

Accountability Framework Initiative

Adrienne Brown

Senior Manager of AFi’s Backbone team

MISSION

To protect forests, natural ecosystems, and human rights by making ethical production and trade the new normal

INDUSTRY

Environmental conservation

HEADQUARTERS

New York, NY and Amsterdam, NL

FOUNDED

2016

LEARNING AUDIENCE

Company staff, consultants, civil society groups

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Protecting forests, ecosystems, and human rights

Meeting companies where they are

Interactive learning, stronger community

Protecting forests, ecosystems, and human rights

n 2015, companies across the agriculture and forestry sectors began making bold promises to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. But making a commitment is only the first step. The real challenge: ensuring follow-through.

From this need, the Accountability Framework initiative (AFi) was founded. Hosted by the Rainforest Alliance and shaped by a coalition of global experts, AFi helps companies in commodity supply chains—from palm oil to cocoa to timber—make measurable progress on deforestation, ecosystem conversion, and human rights.

A person crouching beside a bucket, removing olives from branches

The Accountability Framework is central to achieving this. The lengthy Framework offers principles, definitions, and operational guidance that companies and financial institutions can use as a roadmap for setting goals, taking action, and monitoring and reporting on progress and performance.

But while this thorough scope is necessary to help companies at any stage of the supply chain to tackle such complex, long-term goals and global issues, readers also need to be able to find the guidance most relevant for them as efficiently as possible. And with a wide and varied learning audience—from sustainability officers at multinational corporations to regional consultants—the AFi team knew they needed a more accessible, flexible way to deliver content.

“We needed to present the content in a more modular way to make it more accessible, flexible, and practical,” says Adrienne Brown, Senior Manager of AFi’s Backbone team.

View the story as a PDF

Download PDF

Meeting companies where they are

As the AFi’s first hire on the team, Brown has watched and cultivated its growth over the last decade, from writing the Framework with AFi Coalition members to publishing it and developing workstreams to increase adoption.

For this most recent evolution, Brown led the development of an e-learning platform that transforms the extensive Framework into self-paced, digestible online modules. In this format, learners can zero in on specific action areas—like setting goals or monitoring supply chains—and dive deeper through linked resources and knowledge checks.

“E-learning offers people another way to engage with our content, and makes our materials more digestible and accessible,” Brown says.

E-learning

offers

people

another

way

engage

with

our

content,

and

makes

our

materials

digestible

and

accessible

Adrienne Brown, Senior Manager of AFi’s Backbone team

Interactive learning, stronger community

Beyond accessibility, the team sees the platform as a potential avenue for community building. Looking ahead, AFi is exploring ways to create more peer-to-peer connection on the platform through webinars, expert sessions, and potentially an online hub.

“Everyone wants to learn from each other and see how the work is being done,” says Brown. “But there’s also market sensitivity and antitrust concerns. Spaces where people feel safe to ask honest questions are invaluable to this work.”

AFi is also looking ahead to more interactive content—like branching scenarios—to help users apply the Framework to real-world decisions and see themselves represented in examples.

“Interactivity helps ensure understanding, which is crucial before behavior changes can happen,” says Brown. “Being able to offer that through e-learning has been so powerful for our work.”