Four major sustainability and development organizations are combining existing work on green coffee buying practices for a broader effort designed to ultimately reach more industry actors.
The multi-stakeholder sustainability group Global Coffee Platform (GCP), German development agency GIZ, sustainable trade organization IDH and international civil society organization Solidaridad announced they are combining forces for a shared framework called Coffee Sector Guidance for Responsible Procurement.
Facilitated by Sustainable Food Lab, the project is intended to ultimately give coffee companies practical guidance for purchasing to support farmer incomes and more resilient supply chains. For now, the groups said they are coming together to “shape a common vision for developing” the guidance.
Joining Forces
The ideas behind the project are not entirely new. In March, GCP, IDH and Solidaridad published two Common Procurement Principles developed with 14 major coffee traders and roasters. Those principles called for longer-term business relationships, better consideration of sustainable production costs and greater sharing of sustainability costs and risks.
The new development is that the organizations are combining that work with a separate GIZ-led effort involving German retailers, with the goal of turning broad principles into more specific guidance.
GCP said 18 companies are supporting development of the new guidance. The earlier GCP-led effort has involved Caravela, Ecom, Export Trading Company, Illycaffè, JDE Peet’s, Louis Dreyfus Company, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, Ofi, Sucafina, Sucden Coffee, Taylors of Harrogate, Touton, UCC and Volcafe. GIZ’s parallel coffee project has involved German retailers dm-drogerie markt, Kaufland, Lidl and REWE Group.
Additional producers, exporters, traders, roasters, retailers and civil society organizations are also expected to take part in developing the guidance. Consultation and revision are scheduled to continue through the second quarter of 2027, GCP said.
Addressing Value Inequity
The effort targets a longstanding problem in coffee, as value continues to be distributed unevenly throughout the supply stream, leaving millions of the world’s smallholder coffee farming families vulnerable to realities such as poverty, food insecurity and unsafe labor.
Despite the social and economic sustainability claims trumpeted by large coffee industry players over the past two decades, the underlying structure of the coffee trade has remained fundamentally in favor of large corporations trading and roasting coffee, primarily in the Global North. Meanwhile, smallholder coffee farmers continue to bear the brunt of price and climate shocks.
The 2026 Coffee Barometer argued that even historically high coffee prices have not fundamentally changed a system marked by short-term commercial relationships and disproportionate risk for producers.
A 2024 report from GCP, IDH and Solidaridad found that the coffee sector generates enough overall value to support profitability throughout the chain, yet uneven distribution of that value can make coffee farming economically unviable.
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