Responsibility and Transparency
Coffee is a daily preparation and consumption ritual for many around the globe. It is a critical income source for households, businesses and governments. The coffee industry has the potential to become an equitable, regenerative system that restores natural resources and shares value and risk so that all people in the system can live in prosperity, in dignity and within a healthy environment that secures the coffee industry in the long-term. Solutions for a fair and resilient coffee sector already exist, from producer initiatives to emerging legislation.
Project-based corporate actions have targeted coffee sector issues for people and the planet for decades. To date, these actions have been limited to voluntary projects in small, experimental siloes that have not been adopted at scale. Collaboration across stakeholders occurs for data-sharing, service delivery and public-private-producer action-planning in some coffee landscapes. Examples of value and risk-sharing between multinational coffee roasters and smallholder producers exist in small pockets manifested through premium prices for coffee, cash payments for ecosystem services and cost-sharing for production services and products like insurance. Step-wise approaches to incentivizing and facilitating transitions from monoculture to intercropping, if not agroforestry, exist even in robusta contexts.
Some organized, influential, vertically integrated producer groups compete in domestic and export markets at end-product and retail level. Others advocate locally, nationally and globally for better remuneration for producers, changes in sector governance and for industry accountability.
Many coffee-producing countries are making progress in addressing key challenges for the rural poor including for coffee farmers, notably in access to education, health care, electrification and drinking water in rural areas. Coffee-sector interventions exist to strengthen producer prices, from establishing minimum prices to institutionalizing domestic cups of excellence, commodity exchanges and/or coffee auctions.
A variety of destination and coffee producing countries have instigated legislation and/or directives that address mandatory corporate disclosures and human rights and environmental due diligence that intend to regulate demand pull for supply chains and improve corporate accountability towards people and the planet, including for coffee (VOCAL 2024). Early movers include Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, China and the European Union.
What is needed now is a stronger commitment to transparency, collaboration, and accountability that mandates transformation—moving beyond soft incentives, competition, or protectionism toward systems that secure dignity, prosperity, and environmental protection for all.
STIRRING DISCONTENT
The current reality of the global coffee trade – and the injustices and inequality that it contains – must be understood within the context of the past. The history of colonization informs trade and global governance structures that have transitioned into our era. Interventions, investments and policies are generally chosen that are convenient to those in power and for them to secure the most value and least risk, which typically places the burden of change and compliance on those with the least value and most risk – coffee producers – without their inclusion in decision-making.
Whether or not the lack of representation is intended, the lived reality for those that are not represented is equally harsh. In the context of governance, this is true when decisions come from Europe or North America and are directed towards origin governments in the Global South; as well as from leaders in some origin governments towards their producer communities. In the context of trade, a significant number of trading, roasting and banking institutions originate during colonial times and have perpetuated extractive power, economic and risk-related dynamics into present-day relationships and ways of doing business which have been replicated by their newer competitors.
Traditional, neoliberal economic models that externalize social and environmental costs and damages reinforce colonial legacies by separating industry and governments from their responsibility towards producers and the environment. This allows powerful and wealthy stakeholders to slow progress of change by continuously asking “who pays?” for living incomes, living wages, environmental stewardship and forest protection rather than prioritizing and deploying the known, documented and necessary investments, policies and collaborations. By default, this behavior leaves producers and production in a precarious position given their already limited value acquisition and the wide range of daily and existential risks they face.
Greenwashing and socialwashing are part of the problem. The challenge is not simply about consumer choice, but about the way opaque sourcing and trade practices combine with highly publicized but siloed sustainability projects. This lack of transparency makes it harder for shareholders, policymakers, consumers, and even industry partners to see where the real risks lie. As a result, investment and collaboration are often misdirected, leaving the most urgent areas of transformation underfunded and fragmented.
Issues and dynamics manifest differently across production countries and regions in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Many are rooted in or exacerbated by global inequality, undemocratic institutions globally and domestically, inequitable value and risk sharing in the coffee value chain, and the poverty of coffee farming households.
Aroma of opportunity
The global coffee trade continues to reflect colonial legacies, with power concentrated among industry and governments while producers bear disproportionate risks and burdens without meaningful representation.
With power comes responsibility – individually and collectively – and choice. Companies and governments can acknowledge the role of the past in shaping the present and repair past mistakes by creating new systems, structures, and approaches to historical ways of working and policymaking—rather than doubling down on self‑preservation, individual interests, competition, obfuscation, and redirection. Governments can lean into boundary-setting for levelling the playing field across the private sector by mandating human and environmental protections regardless of market trends and profit motives. Companies can be driven by long-term, shared value and risk management across their entire supply chain with particular interest and investment in the environment and producers. Governments can protect natural assets, invest in healthy environments and prioritize the socio-economic needs and experiences of the poorest and most disadvantaged wherever they are in the globe, acknowledging that global inequality and persistent poverty are collective problems to solve that know no borders.
Confronting inequality, ensuring fair value and risk sharing, and mandating transparency and due diligence are all choices the sector can make for securing its long-term future. Each entity and stakeholder has a role to play to secure dignity, prosperity, and environmental protection for all.
