Cocoa cultivation has been promoted in Peru since the 1990s as an alternative to illegal coca cultivation. Since 2011, HALBA has been purchasing organic and Fairtrade cocoa beans from the San Martin province. Shortly after 2011, it launched a reforestation project with partners Acopagro and PUR Projet to sequester CO₂e emissions and protect the rainforest.
For CO2-neutral chocolate, trees were planted on areas belonging to the members of the Acopagro Cooperative to combat deforestation and preserve biodiversity. The project created an additional source of income for the farmers, as the cooperative was able to sell the sequestered CO2 on the international emissions trading market. Between 2011 and 2024, HALBA was able to offer CO2-neutral chocolate together with PUR Projet by planting trees, calculating the CO2e footprints of the products and having these validated by the myclimate foundation.
Compensation by offsetting with emission certificates is no longer permitted due to the requirements of the GHG Protocol. Since 2025, HALBA has aligned its climate strategy fully with the requirements of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Guidance. HALBA therefore ceased to use the «Carbon-neutral Product» label and instead focuses on systematically reducing and removing emissions along its own supply chain.
This is achieved, among other things, by cultivating cocoa plots managed according to the principles of dynamic agroforestry (DAF) and financed through the Climate We Care Fund initiated by HALBA. As in other cocoa-growing areas, the San Martin region in Peru also suffers from unsustainable cocoa cultivation methods. In recent years, these have led to significant crop losses, particularly due to the spread of diseases and pests. For this reason, HALBA has decided to pilot the approach of dynamic agroforestry (DAF) , which has already been successfully implemented in other countries.
The collaboration with the Acopagro cocoa cooperative and the partners Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation has existed since 2024. Ecotop supports this DAF project with the necessary technical expertise.
