Eight GCP members raise $1.5 million in first funding round
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The Global Coffee Platform (GCP) has announced that eight of its leading members have championed the launch of a new era of collective action in coffee sustainability. The combined contribution of more than $1.5 million marks the first milestone of the organisation’s development into “GCP 2.0”, an effort to significantly advance coffee smallholders’ sustainability and prosperity.
“This targeted co-funding by our membership kick-starts our work, catalysing transformational change around living income, climate adaptation and sustainability for over one million coffee farmers around the world,” announced GCP executive director, Annette Pensel. “Today, we celebrate the commitment of JDE Peet’s, Melitta Group, Mother Parkers’ Coffee & Tea, Nescafé, Nespresso, ofi (olam food ingredients), Rabobank and Westrock Coffee Company. These companies are taking collective action to the next level to propel coffee sustainability.”
GCP 2.0’s farmer-centric approach entails focused local collective actions in coffee producing countries together with local stakeholders, complemented with a global drive to increase sustainable sourcing.
Sharing responsibility
Despite many years of efforts and certain sustainability advancements, the sector is still facing profound challenges to sustainability. More than half of coffee farmers around the globe are challenged by poverty, and coffee supply is threatened by climate change and increasing regulatory requirements.
“To unlock coffee’s potential as both an engine of socio-economic growth and nature-based solution to climate change, we urgently need transformational change with strategic action and bold investments within supply chains and, importantly, beyond it. Durable change comes only with focused solutions that are owned by coffee growers themselves, supported by public, private and NGO partners.”
Collective action locally and globally
“GCP has demonstrated that change beyond supply chains is possible when GCP Member companies work with our NGO and government partners through collective action,” says GCP board chair, Carlos Brando. “This pre-competitive collaboration is crucial to generating adequate level of investment and change. No one company can be effective by itself. Collective action is essential to not just ensuring compliance but also accelerating measurable sustainability at scale.
“We are grateful that these GCP Members have stepped forward with this initial round of co-funding. This will lay the groundwork to bring ambitious solutions to over one million coffee smallholders.”
The combined $1.5 million investment enables GCP to grow, attracting new talent and further revenue, including public co-funding that is key to accelerate the first six entrepreneurial country programmes to investment-ready levels and support the development of aligned measurement in the form of GCP Country Reports.
“While achieving transformational change on farmers prosperity for one million coffee farmers seems like an ambitious goal, today marks an exciting first milestone for GCP and an indication that we can transform the industry together,” said Pensel.
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