A certified B Corp stamp on a bag of green coffee. Daily Coffee News photo by Nick Brown.
Seven Certified B Corporations spanning green coffee production, trading, roasting and retailing have launched the B Corp Coffee Coalition, presenting a shared commitment to improving the coffee sector.
The founding members are Brazil’s Sancoffee, Switzerland’s ViCafe, U.S.-based Cafe Imports, Singapore’s Bettr Group, Denmark’s CleverCoffee, Australia and New Zealand-based Nomad Coffee Group and Kenya’s Spring Valley Coffee.
The coalition says it is open to other Certified B Corps active in coffee and will begin with working groups focused on farmer prosperity and workforce development.
Founding members are hosting two open Q&A sessions on Thursday, April 30. Coalition materials say the group reserves the right to introduce a membership fee in the future, but they do not list any current fee or participation cost.
The coalition’s website says it grew out of early conversations among coffee B Corps about exchanging best practices and learning from one another, while recent B Lab posts describe the initiative as having been in the works for months.
The nonprofit B Lab was founded in the U.S. in 2006 and announced the first 82 Certified B Corps in 2007. The certification is designed to verify high standards of social, environmental and governance performance, plus accountability and transparency. Today, the movement includes more than 10,000 certified companies across 103 countries and 160 industries, with dozens of coffee-related certified companies.
While the Coffee Coalition represents a grassroots movement among companies boasting B Lab credentials, it is not without precedent within the broader B Lab movement. The B Beauty Coalition now has more than 80 members globally with a stated commitment to improve sustainability practices in the personal care and cosmetics industries.
The B Corp Coffee Coalition lists a set of “shared values” and says it will be governed by a supervisory board. The board will comprise the founding members for the first two years, then will be elected by coalition members, with elections “guided by principles of gender representation, geographical distribution, and sectoral representation,” according to the group’s website.
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