GLOBAL COFFEEPLATFORM

GCP Member Assembly 2024
Three key take-aways and seven highlights

GCP Members gathered for the in-person GCP Member Assembly 2024, which took place on June 25 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The Assembly brought together over 130 participants, opening a space for exchange between the GCP Membership community, national and international coffee sector stakeholders and sustainability experts to celebrate progress, discover collective action opportunities and discuss the path towards the GCP 2030 Goal.

The key take-aways from this assembly are:

  • GCP is the place for aligning and advancing coffee sustainability to address business challenges through dialogue and effective collaboration
  • GCP Collective Action for Farmer Prosperity in coffee producing countries is happening! The time is now to step up engagement and co-investments to leverage public co-funding and deliver measurable results on farmer income and sustainability – not least to be better prepared for upcoming regulations and reporting requirements
  • Each member is invited to bring a new member by Dec 2024 to grow the GCP Membership Community further

1. Meeting the Country Platforms

During the day, GCP Members had the opportunity to interact directly with the members of all six GCP-affiliated Country Platforms. Representatives from Brazil, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, and Vietnam exchanged information about their Country Platform’s past, present and future work.

The producing country coffee leaders showed and got feedback on the different aspects of their GCP Collective Action Plans for Farmer Prosperity. GCP Members used the opportunity to dive deeper into each Country Platform’s plans to reduce the Living Income gaps for coffee farmers as contribution to the overall GCP 2030 Goal, the specific strategies to achieve milestones and targets and the steps of the first phase of execution of the GCP Collective Action (2024-2026).

2. GCP Collective Action for Farmer Prosperity: Why work collectively through GCP?

To address the fundamental question of “why working collectively through GCP”, a panel brought to the stage representatives of six GCP Members, who shared concrete examples of how GCP Collective Action is contributing to solve some of the most pressing coffee sustainability business challenges. Having learned to work together with peers and local public and private coffee stakeholders through successful Collective Action Initiatives in the past years, speakers shared their insights and excitement about the potential for scale through holistic, locally owned GCP Collective Action Plans in coffee producing countries to effectively reduce Living Income gaps, towards farmer prosperity.

Daniele Buzzetti shared reasons for Nestlé’s active participation in the Collective Action Initiatives in Brazil, Vietnam, Uganda and first joint activities in Indonesia. On a similar note, Deepak Kaul from ofi commented on their participation in the GCP Initiative in Brazil, as well as their interest in working collectively from a trader’s perspective.

Rafael Fonseca, from Coomap, brought valuable perspectives as implementer in the initiative on Agro-chemicals in Brazil. Fonseca explained why Coomap joined this collective approach and illustrated the different experiences gained by his cooperatives’ farmers from this collective work that embed solutions into the day-to-day practices, versus more traditional supply chain projects.

Building on the positive experience from engagement in collective work through GCP in Brazil, Stefan Dierks talked about Melitta Group’s interest to work further on regenerative agriculture in a holistic manner via the GCP Collective Action Plan for Farmer Prosperity in Brazil.

Tessa Meulensteen, from idh – The Sustainable Trade Initiative, commented on idh’s participation in the GCP Collective Action Initiatives in Uganda and Vietnam, alongside with the other work the organization develops in these origins. She also highlighted the support to idh’s coffee work in East Africa given the complementarity of effective public-private convening through Country Platforms in Uganda and Kenya.

Tran Cong Thang shared his insights as government representative and co-chair of the Vietnamese Coffee Coordination Board, on the remarkable impact of the Collective Action Initiative on Responsible Use of Agro-Inputs. Cong Thang emphasized the importance of having developed this work together with multiple supply chain actors to achieve the results on significant reduction of glyphosate residues in coffee, thus enabling continuous proceeds from coffee production and export.

GCP Senior Manager Countries and Partnerships, Lauren Weiss, lead the panel on members’ experiences working collectively.
In the photo from left to right: Daniele Buzzeti (Nestlé), Deepak Kaul (ofi), Stefan Dierks (Mellita), Rafael Fonseca (Coomap), Tessa Meulensteen (idh – The Sustainable Trade Initiative) and Tran Cong Thang (Vietnamese Coffee Coordination Board).
In the photo from left to right: Daniele Buzzetti (Nestlé), Deepak Kaul (ofi), Stefan Dierks (Melitta Group), Rafael Fonseca (Coomap), Tessa Meulensteen (idh – The Sustainable Trade Initiative) and Tran Cong Thang (Vietnamese Coffee Coordination Board).

3. Dive deeper: GCP Collective Action, Data for Progress and Credible Claims, and Engagement roles for GCP Members

Following the panel discussion on GCP Collective Action on Farmer Prosperity, participants had the opportunity to engage in one of three breakout groups: GCP Collective Action intro, Data for Progress and Credible Claims, and Engagement Roles.

This session offered an introduction to what GCP means with “Collective Action”. The Secretariat leads of three Country Platforms (Brazil, Uganda and Vietnam) explained how GCP’s collective action is done pre-competitively through private co-investments combined with public co-funding and highlighted the central role of convening and the main lessons of their work.

In the photo from left to right: Samson Emong, Manager of the Uganda Country Platform; Pham Quang Trung, GCP Vietnam Program Manager; Pedro Ronca, GCP Brazil Director; and Lauren Weiss, GCP Senior Manager Countries and Partnerships.

During the Data for Progress and Credible Claims session, members got a better understanding of the type of data that GCP Collective Action will collect, and how GCP Members who co-invest into this work can use it for credible reporting as contribution to their own sustainability goals.

Photo caption: This discussion was guided by GCP’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager, Nazir Ul Haq, and Senior Manager Member Relations, Caroline Glowka.

The third breakout group was focused on the engagement roles for GCP Members. The goal of the conversation was to answer members’ questions on the potential role(s) their organization could play in GCP Collective Action.

During the session, participants from different groups of the coffee value chain and NGOs brainstormed on how members’ roles that prove to work effectively in GCP Collective Action Initiatives can best be expanded and scaled up to ensure all GCP Members can be involved in delivering on the shared GCP 2030 Goal.

Photo caption: The discussion was facilitated by GCP’s Executive Director, Annette Pensel, and GCP Senior Advisor, Mary Petitt.

4. GCP Members share: How the GCP Tools effectively address coffee sustainability challenges? 

A second panel brought to the stage representatives of four GCP Member organizations, who shared they experience on how the Coffee Sustainability Reference Code (Coffee SR Code), the Equivalence Mechanism (EM) and the Collective Reporting effectively address some of the pressing coffee sustainability challenges.

“When we talk about coffee and the sustainability of coffee, most of us know a lot of the details and all the aspects of sustainability that are important, but large brands need a common understanding of what sustainability is. (…) The Coffee Sustainability Reference Code really sets that common language and provides that foundation for sustainability, and for having that discussion about sustainability.”

Christien Parrot, Mother Parker’s Tea & Coffee

“If I were to ask a farmer: now that regulators, brands and consumer countries demand certain things of your farming practices, would you like to be overwhelmed with 100 different codes or would you like just one that is harmonized? I am pretty sure the farmer would answer “yes, please sort your things together and then come and see me when you have one single one.” And this is, in a sense, what the GCP reference code did, and I want to say that as a result, it’s really simplifying our task.”

Olivier Laboulle, Louis Dreyfus Company

“As some of our clients are going beyond the GCP recognition, they want us to also validate ourselves against our in-house process. I think that the GCP Equivalence Mechanism has really helped us ensure the way we have described and documented our assurance processes, our governing processes. We feel confident that we have done a good job and we’re willing to transparently share these documents with our clients.”

Anneke Fermont, Volcafe

“The GCP Tools have been key in our responsible sourcing strategy, in the sense that they define the base for all of us. It has often been seen as a compliance option, but we see them as incredible value creation. When you start implementing you will realize that it won’t be just the consumer in Europe. If we want farmers to adopt these practices, they have to create value. They won’t do it just to please the EU or to please whatever customer, you do it because for yourself it is increasing value, it is increasing your quality of life.”

Laurent Sagarra, JDE Peet’s

5. Planning for the future: the evolution of the GCP Tools

During the afternoon, GCP Members went into breakout groups to collectively explore the evolution of GCP Tools towards Sustainable Sourcing. GCP Members, coffee sector stakeholders and sustainability experts divided into four groups: Producers and Government Representatives, Traders, Roasters & Retailers, and Civil Society Organizations.

The discussion was guided by two main questions. The first, exploring the ways in which GCP Tools could be presented more clearly to increase collective uptake. The second focused on reflecting on the ways GCP Tools can be evolved to expand the benefits for farmers in measurable ways.

6. Updates on EUDR, RegenAg and Coffee Value Distribution Study  

During the last session of the day, members were provided with updates on pertinent and innovative sustainability topics relevant for the GCP Goal and Strategy. GCP Executive Director shared an overview of the GCP Board discussion on EUDR, announcing the new EUDR Guidance and Recommendations paper to be shared with GCP Members early July.

An update on Regenerative Agriculture discussions was shared, including the actions taken so far. Through a live survey GCP’s Senior Manager Sustainable Sourcing received feedback and preferences by the membership on next steps and the role GCP should take. The overwhelming preference was that GCP should support alignment and harmonizing of this concept going forward, like the Coffee SR Code. Details of this work and engagement opportunities will be shared with the members in due time.

Finally, GCP Members learned about the main findings of the study “The Grounds for Sharing: A study of value distribution in the coffee industry”. The study, commissioned by the Global Coffee Platform, IDH and Solidaridad, is an invitation to coffee companies to explore options for alternative value distribution that contributes to higher farmer income. Interested members are invited to get in touch with the GCP Secretariat to explore further steps.

In the photo from left to right: Andrea Olivar (Solidaridad), Christophe Alliot (BASIC), Marion Feige-Muller (BASIC), Mette-Marie Hansen (idh – The Sustainable Trade Initiative), and Markus Bier (Solidaridad).

7. A transition of leadership in the GCP Board

The Member Assembly was also the stage for a transition on the GCP Board. Bidding farewell to the Immediate Past Chair, Carlos Brando was thanked for his extraordinary leadership, dedication and passionate service to GCP for the past six years. In his closing words, Carlos remarked the need of collective work to improve farmers prosperity and provoked the membership to go further in the path towards coffee sustainability.

Carlos will continue to support GCP’s work as an active member, helping to expand innovation, integrate sustainability solutions in existing structures and scale tangible benefits for coffee farming communities.

This was also the opportunity for GCP Members to welcome the new Board Chair, Adriana Mejía Cuartas. In her first speech as Board Chair, Mejía pointed out that “we need many coffee beans for the perfect cup of coffee: every GCP Member, big or small, is invited to step forward, bring a new member, and engage to effectively address sustainability business challenges while sharing the responsibility for coffee sustainability through GCP!”