Regenerative Organic Certified
Gold tier — Farm audited — organic plus soil carbon plus fair laborBuilt on top of USDA Organic. Adds measurable soil carbon sequestration, robust animal welfare standards, and farmer economic resilience. The newest and most comprehensive food cert.
- Launched in 2020 by the Regenerative Organic Alliance, founded by the Rodale Institute, Patagonia, and Dr. Bronner’s.
- Requires USDA Organic certification as its floor, then audits three further pillars: soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness.
- Awarded at Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels, per the Regenerative Organic Alliance framework, as of July 2026.
What does Regenerative Organic Certified require?
Regenerative Organic Certified starts where USDA Organic ends. Organic is the entry requirement; on top of it the standard audits three pillars. Soil health: cover cropping, reduced tillage, rotational grazing — practices verified to build soil carbon rather than just avoid depleting it. Animal welfare: pasture-based living conditions. Social fairness: fair labor practices and living wages for the people working the farm.
All three pillars are audited, and the certification comes in Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels depending on how far the operation goes.
Who audits it, and how often?
The Regenerative Organic Alliance oversees the framework and approves the certifying bodies, which audit annually. Because organic certification is the prerequisite, an ROC farm is effectively carrying two layers of inspection — the USDA-accredited organic audit plus the ROC pillar audits.
What does Regenerative Organic Certified not cover?
ROC covers the farm and the people on it, not what happens after the harvest: packaging, distribution, and the brand's corporate behavior are out of scope. It is also young — launched in 2020 — so plenty of genuinely regenerative farms simply have not certified yet. Absence is not evidence of absence.
How does GreenSpecs weight Regenerative Organic Certified?
GreenSpecs scores ROC at the top of the certifications signal, alongside Demeter — this cert was designed specifically to prove active land regeneration, not just the absence of synthetics. A product with ROC alone scores higher than a product with five supporting certs but no land-regeneration cert, because it addresses the biggest slice of a food product's real footprint.
Scan a product that carries this cert and see how it lands in the full five-signal score.