Report: Sustainability Must Be Embedded Into Core Buying Practices to Drive Change

From the Cover of the VOCAL Coffee Alliance report. Shared via Creative Commons License AttributionShareAlike 4.0 International

A new “living document” from the civil-society coalition VOCAL Coffee Alliance argues that project-based corporate sustainability is doing little to shift value chain imbalances and promote long-term sustainable coffee production.

What’s needed instead, the report argues, is more responsible practices baked into the green coffee buying operations of coffee traders and roasters. 

Following producer consultations in eight coffee origin countries, the report calls on roasters, retailers and traders to embed “living income,” timely payments and risk-sharing into their core procurement practices, rather than treating sustainability as a separate, project-based activity. 

Moving Beyond Sustainability Silos

The report describes project-based sustainability initiatives — often designed to boost farm productivity while involving donors, technical experts, banks and agrochemical companies — as “sustainability silos” or corporate social responsibility (CSR) schemes.

“Ironically, many if not most of these ‘sustainability’ projects remain disassociated from companies’ core procurement strategies, meaning the coffee produced from these projects is not necessarily bought by the companies involved, or only in minimal quantities,” the paper states. “And for the coffee that is purchased, prices do not factor into the project design, despite the fact that price is the single variable impacting farmer income that is in the direct control of companies.”

Titled “Percolating Responsible Procurement: Coffee Producer Perspectives,” the report is based on initial consultations with producers from Brazil, Nicaragua, Honduras, Uganda, Indonesia, Guatemala, Mexico and Sri Lanka between June and December 2025. The alliance said the report will “evolve as consultations with producers deepen and new evidence emerges.”

Prices Provide Opportunity

The report notably comes amid a sustained period of nominally high prices for green coffee globally, which the authors suggest creates potential for “sector-level restructuring and innovation for the benefit of producers.”

Yet the report notes that financial markets remain disconnected from production realities. For example, the world’s approximately 12.5 million smallholder coffee farmers, who produce approximately 80% of the world’s coffee, continue to capture the least value while absorbing the greatest risks with the fewest resources. 

“Existing market-based pricing structures fail to price-in the full range of value contributions of producers and their production level risks,” the report states. “They exclude farmers’ own labor, family labor, and the environmental and social value they provide, as well as the investments required for agroforestry and climate adaptation.”

Closing the Living Income Gap

The report centers on “living income” as an industry-wide priority, as identified in multiple Multistakeholder Initiatives (MSIs). It suggests that much of the collaborative work thus far being done to address “living income gaps” has focused on data collection, analytical methodologies and tools. Meanwhile, “service delivery” within living income initiatives has necessitated “behavior change” among farmers, typically toward a goal of higher farm productivity/volumes.

“To achieve scalable impact, value and risk sharing with smallholders must be embedded in companies’ procurement practices rather than locked in sustainability silos,” the report argues. “In other words, we must achieve fundamental changes to value chain relationships and their underlying ways of relating.”

Ashlee Tuttleman of the VOCAL alliance was named as the primary author of the report. VOCAL consists of eight civil society organizations: Coffee Watch, Fern, INKOTA netzwerk, Oxfam Belgium, Public Eye, Rikolto, WWF Switzerland and Fairfood.

Find the full report here. 

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