Coffee Sustainability

Formally founded in March 2016, the Global Coffee Platform (GCP) launches to the public, to tackle the most critical sustainability challenges and contribute to greater collective impact on the livelihoods and natural environments of coffee farming communities. Combining the valuable membership of the 4C Association with the pre-competitive activities of the Sustainable Coffee Program, the GCP marks a new era of sustainability for the coffee sector.

Aligning the activities of a diverse network of over 300 stakeholders, through a bottom up approach, the GCP unites local public and private sector stakeholders to identify the most critical sustainability challenges, and then feeds these national priorities into a global agenda that the entire sector can commit to, known as Vision2020. Vision2020 translates into action oriented work-streams, open for all coffee sector stakeholders to participate. Work-streams can also be developed on the basis of critical mass and interest from the general membership.

Members of the Global Coffee Platform include farmers and farmer organizations (big and small), trade (importers and exporters), industry (coffee roasters and retailers), other supply chain actors, civil society (non-governmental organizations such as sustainability standards, implementers and other support organizations), individuals, donor agencies and many other organizations.

The Global Coffee Platform also supports the use of the Baseline Common Code, a set of globally referenced baseline principles and practices for coffee production and processing. Through the support of this reference code, the GCP aims to enable sector-wide adoption of minimum sustainability requirements and create a level playing field for collectively reporting and measuring improvements.