ETHICAL SOURCING Coffee
Making coffee the world’s first sustainable product to improve the lives of at least one million people in communities around the world.
Starbucks is dedicated to helping farmers overcome the challenges facing coffee communities. We are committed to buying 100 percent ethically sourced coffee in partnership with Conservation International. To improve productivity and sustainability, we share our research and resources through our Farmer Support Centers—located in coffee-producing countries around the world. They’re open to farmers regardless of whether they sell to us. Thanks to the support of our customers, we’re also donating millions of disease-resistant trees to help farmers fight threats like coffee leaf rust. And through our Global Farmer Fund program, we’re investing $50 million toward financing for farmers, allowing them to renovate their farm or pursue more sustainable practices.
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Now we’re collaborating with the industry to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product, as a founding member of the Sustainable Coffee Challenge.
In total, Starbucks has invested more than $100 million in supporting coffee communities. Collaborative farmer programs and activities – including Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, farmer support centers, farmer loans and forest carbon projects. All of these programs directly support improving farmer livelihoods and ensuring a long-term supply of high-quality coffee for the industry.
More than three years after reaching an industry milestone of 99% ethically sourced coffee, Starbucks announced the launch of a traceability pilot program aimed to demonstrate how technology and innovative data platforms can give coffee farmers even more financial empowerment and share data along the journey of coffee beans within the supply chain.
The pilot allows Starbucks in collaboration with Conservation International, to explore how the technology solutions will have a positive impact to farmers, and to assess the viability of scaling the traceability technology and ensuring positive impact to farmers. True to its open-source philosophy, Starbucks plans to share what it learns openly.
In deploying a comprehensive strategy, Starbucks is improving the resilience of our supply chain and ensuring the long-term supply of high-quality coffees, as well as building stronger, enduring farming communities for generations to come.
ETHICAL SOURCING Making Coffee the First Sustainable Agricultural Product
We know that the most pressing issues in coffee can’t be solved by one company alone, and that the best solutions require everyone coming together to collaborate in bringing about a better future for farmers.
Our journey of ethical sourcing requires looking beyond our own supply chain. After achieving our 99% ethically sourced milestone, Starbucks asked “what’s next, and how can we work with the whole sector to get to 100% sustainable coffee?"
Starbucks is a founding member, alongside a growing coalition of industry leaders, of the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, a call to action led by Conservation International to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agriculture product. The challenge is convening the sector to sustain the future supply of coffee while ensuring the prosperity and well-being of farmers and workers and conserving nature.
The Sustainable Coffee Challenge, is a joint initiative of over 100 partners working together to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product. Members include coffee producers, retailers, traders, roasters, importers, industry associations, governments, donor agencies and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are building a sustainability roadmap for achieving a fully sustainable coffee sector.
In 2017 the Sustainable Coffee Challenge launched its first action networks to coordinate industry action and investment. By launching Collective Action Networks the Challenge will advance sharing of experience and collaboration to significantly advance our progress toward sustainable coffee production.
One of the first Action Networks tackles the issue around aging trees and a focus to support tree replacement or rehabilitation. Starbucks commitment to providing 100 million trees to farmers by 2025 has a cumulative effect when added to the work of The Sustainable Coffee Challenge who is working on an industry wide effort to re-plant 1 billion coffee trees.
We invite you to join us. To get involved, please contact Conservation International and follow our progress at www.sustaincoffee.org.
