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Dear Sustainable Coffee lovers,
We wanted to share a quick update on some of the exciting reforms we're seeing across the coffee sector.
TLDR: After decades of very limited movement, things are starting to change in a good direction.
The long version:
It's impossible to say whether these shifts are happening because of Coffee Watch and our allies' work, or for other reasons entirely. But, it does feel meaningful (and not accidental) that after many years of stagnation, the coffee industry is suddenly seeing a wave of reforms.
Here are a few positive changes that have stood out to us!
Companies: Major companies have announced new sustainability initiatives. These are not yet hitting high levels of excellence, but represent taking real steps forward from where things stood just a few years ago.
Nestle made new commitments to regenerative agriculture in its coffee supply chains.
JDE Peet's introduced a "Nature Transition Plan" tied to its coffee sourcing. A part of this plan is the Coffee Canopy Partnership which involves a collaboration between Keurig Dr Pepper, Louis Dreyfus Company, Sucden, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, Touton, Sucafina, and Tchibo to map coffee farms around the world. It uses satellite mapping to create the world's first comprehensive open access map of global coffee production. This type of initiative could spur a revolution for traceability and transparency across the industry. It's emergence follows sustained advocacy and repeated public engagement by Coffee Watch. While it remains to be seen how this plan will be implemented, it represents a major breakthrough.
On March 31, 14 major coffee traders and roasters agreed on two shared green coffee buying principles to improve sustainability. It focuses on long-term collaborations and downstream support to farmers to transition to more sustainable farming practices. This agreement followed VOCAL Coffee Alliances' recent paper titled, "Percolating Responsible Procurement", which highlights producer perspective. Coffee Watch contributed to this paper as a member of VOCAL.
Certifications: Certification systems seem to be shifting in ways that advocates have demanded for decades. The top two independent certifications in coffee are both moving.
Fairtrade International is apparently finally moving toward living income for its coffee (amazing, if true!) and stronger labor protections.
Rainforest Alliance launched a new Regenerative Agriculture Standard for coffee focused on restoring ecosystems and improving soil health, biodiversity, water stewardship, climate resilience and farmer livelihoods.
Governments: Some governments are stepping in more forcefully for sustainable coffee!
After our report with Empower and ProDESC, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum launched Café Bienstar, a major program to support smallholder farmers and pay fairer prices.
Even more important, Mexico’s federal government enacted the Sustainable Development of Coffee Farming Law, creating the country’s first comprehensive legal framework governing the entire coffee value chain to promote transparency, premiums for farmers, and support for agroecological practices like agroforestry systems. The law even creates a National Coffee Farming Information System which will track tons of info on coffee including deforestation.
After our report on Brazilian coffee deforestation, the Brazilian government launched its ‘Parque Cafeeiro’ platform (a free public tool) to certify Brazilian coffee as deforestation-free. This could be a gamechanger!
EUDR: It’s clear that a lot of progress in coffee sustainability is also driven by proposed laws like the EU’s deforestation law (EUDR), which Coffee Watch and other NGOs have been fighting really hard to defend from attacks and requests to delay or derail the legislation
Global Canopy’s Forest 500’s new annual assessment of “forest-risk” companies including coffee titans shows that the EUDR is having a huge impact even before it comes into force. Across the board, and not just in coffee, companies are investing more in traceability and preparing for new regulations like the EUDR.
Our recent report with Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) (learn more below) showed a similar trend, the EUDR is working but it needs to be implemented!
None of this is enough. Not close. But it is movement—and after so many years of inaction, that matters.
Here’s What Coffee Watch has been up to in 2026 (so far)
- Trying to help save the EUDR: We’ve been actively holding meetings, organizing petition supporters, sending letters, and developing a system to evaluate and grade companies based on their level of support for EUDR commitments.
- Giving love to agroforestry: In January, we supported the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in launching the world’s first Coffee Agroforestry E-Library—a global, open-access database of research on shade-grown coffee. This brings together decades of science into one place, making it easier for farmers, policymakers, and companies to actually implement better practices. The launch was covered widely, including by Mongabay and major coffee publications.
- Assessing German coffee titans’ compliance with laws: In March, we worked with DUH on a new report, “Drinking Deforestation in German Coffee,” analyzing how 21 German companies are handling supply chain due diligence. The findings reinforced something we’ve seen again and again: transparency and accountability are still far too weak—but pressure is starting to change that.
- This report is our 10th report in 15 months… which we are pretty proud of having managed to pull off.
- Working on our social media: we did a stop check and assessed that we went from zero to 3.3 million views, since we started a year and a half ago!
- Reaching out to many journalists to increase media coverage of coffee abuses: our stop check also revealed that in 2025 we got about 400 media pieces on our work, generating about 1.2 billion views of the media coverage (we hope people actually read the articles and didn’t just scroll for a second!)… Meaning we doubled global media coverage of coffee abuses between the year prior to our existence, and our first year of existence. Cool!
As for the rest of 2026...
If you’ve been following our work, you know this is a long game.
The changes we’re starting to see didn’t happen overnight—and they won’t continue without huge sustained pressure, research, and campaigning.
We have a pipeline of new investigations and reports in the works. They document various major issues in coffee including gender-based violence, child labor, pesticide overuse and deforestation in key coffee-growing regions around the world. So stay tuned for some great new investigative reports!
We need your help to keep the momentum going!
If you’re in a position to do so, we’d really appreciate your financial support. Donations help us continue investigations, publish reports, and push for the systemic changes the coffee sector still urgently needs.
Even small contributions make a real difference. You could donate 1000 USD which is what most people spend on coffee each year, but you can also just give us the price of a cup of coffee every month. That helps too.
Thank you for being part of this. We’ll keep pushing—and we’ll keep you updated as things evolve.
Warmly,
The Coffee Watch Team ☕🌱