Coffee giants join forces to tackle supply chain deforestation

Coffee industry launches first comprehensive mapping project to track deforestation

Seven major coffee companies have joined forces to create the first publicly accessible map of global coffee production areas. The Coffee Canopy Partnership will use satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to identify deforestation risks across coffee-growing regions worldwide.

JDE Peet’s, now part of Keurig Dr Pepper, leads the initiative alongside Louis Dreyfus Company, Sucden, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, Touton, Sucafina, and Tchibo. Together, these companies control significant portions of the global coffee trade. Their collaboration represents a shift from individual corporate sustainability programs to shared industry infrastructure.

The partnership addresses a longstanding problem in coffee supply chain management. Coffee farms, particularly those using shade-grown or agroforestry methods, have frequently been misclassified as natural forest in existing databases. This confusion complicates compliance with new deforestation regulations and threatens smallholder farmers with market exclusion based on inaccurate data.

Airbus provides the satellite technology and AI analysis tools for the mapping project. Meanwhile, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office funds the initiative, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization offers methodological guidance and quality assurance.

East Africa pilot phase covers 1.2 million square kilometers

The pilot phase focuses on six East African countries: Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda. This region covers approximately 1.2 million square kilometers of coffee landscapes. Satellite technology will detect forest loss by comparing current imagery with historical data.

Initial data deliveries begin in April 2026, with the complete pilot dataset ready by June 2026. The partnership announced these plans on April 22, 2026, at simultaneous events in Toulouse and Hamburg. Following the pilot phase, the consortium aims for global coverage by 2027, subject to additional co-investment from other companies and organizations.

The FAO’s involvement includes integrating the new mapping data with its 2020 coffee production maps. This integration should improve accuracy and provide continuity with existing international datasets. Furthermore, the FAO’s quality assurance role adds credibility for government agencies and regulatory bodies that will rely on this information.

Three primary goals drive the partnership. First, it will identify coffee-related deforestation by overlaying production maps with forest loss data. Second, it will enable remediation efforts through collaboration with governments and farming communities. Third, it will provide open-access data to farmers, governments, and the entire sector for transparent risk management.

EU regulation creates urgent need for accurate farm location data

The EU Deforestation Regulation, known as EUDR, bans coffee from land deforested after December 2020 from entering EU markets. This regulation took effect recently and requires companies to prove their products are deforestation-free. However, existing mapping tools often cannot distinguish between natural forest and coffee agroforestry systems.

Coffee grown under tree canopies provides environmental benefits including carbon sequestration, soil protection, and biodiversity habitat. These agroforestry farms can appear identical to natural forest in satellite imagery. Consequently, farmers practicing environmentally beneficial growing methods risk being wrongly flagged as operating in deforested areas.

This misclassification poses a serious threat to smallholder farmers, who produce roughly 70 percent of the world’s coffee. If farmers cannot prove their land was not recently deforested, they may lose access to EU markets. For many farming families, particularly in East Africa, this could mean financial devastation despite having farmed the same land for generations.

Individual companies have struggled to create accurate maps independently. Each organization working in isolation leads to duplicated efforts, inconsistent methodologies, and gaps in coverage. Moreover, smallholder farmers often sell to multiple buyers, making individual company mapping efforts inefficient. The Coffee Canopy Partnership solves this problem by creating shared infrastructure that benefits everyone.

Laurent Sagarra, Vice President of Engagement at JDE Peet’s, emphasized the shift from scattered company-by-company forest efforts to coordinated work at the landscape level. This approach recognizes that deforestation cannot be addressed through isolated supply chain interventions alone. Instead, it requires understanding and managing entire coffee-growing landscapes.

UK SMEs in coffee supply chains face compliance pressure

British businesses that import, process, or sell coffee products must now demonstrate EUDR compliance. This includes roasters, retailers, wholesalers, and food service companies. Even small importers cannot avoid these requirements. The regulation applies regardless of business size.

Companies must collect geolocation coordinates for every farm in their supply chain. They must also provide verifiable information showing the land was not deforested after December 2020. For businesses sourcing from multiple suppliers or trading through intermediaries, gathering this information presents significant challenges. Many UK coffee businesses lack direct relationships with origin farms, particularly when sourcing commodity-grade coffee through established trading channels.

The Coffee Canopy Partnership data should help UK businesses meet these requirements more efficiently. Instead of each company independently verifying farm locations and forest status, they can reference a shared, authoritative dataset. This reduces costs and improves accuracy compared to individual due diligence efforts. Additionally, it levels the playing field between large corporations with extensive resources and smaller businesses with limited compliance budgets.

Businesses that cannot demonstrate compliance face penalties including fines and exclusion from EU markets. For UK companies, this matters despite Brexit because the EU remains a major export destination for processed coffee products. Furthermore, UK regulations increasingly mirror EU standards on environmental issues. Companies should therefore view EUDR compliance as part of a broader regulatory direction rather than an isolated requirement.

The partnership’s open-access model means data will be available to all businesses, not just participating companies. This democratizes access to critical compliance information. However, businesses will still need to verify their specific suppliers and maintain documentation systems. The mapping data provides a foundation, but companies remain responsible for their own due diligence processes.

Supply chain transparency becomes increasingly important as regulations expand beyond deforestation to include broader environmental and social factors. UK procurement teams at larger businesses already incorporate sustainability criteria into supplier selection. Those selling to public sector organizations through framework agreements must address carbon reduction and environmental impact. The carbon reporting requirements under PPN 06/21 demonstrate how sustainability standards now affect tender opportunities and contract awards.

Important details about the mapping initiative

• The pilot phase covers 1.2 million square kilometers across Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda, with data deliveries starting April 2026 and completion by June 2026.
• Airbus provides satellite imagery and AI technology to detect forest loss and map coffee production areas with higher accuracy than previous methods.
• The UN Food and Agriculture Organization ensures methodological quality and integrates new data with its 2020 coffee production maps.
• Data will be publicly accessible to farmers, governments, businesses, and civil society organizations at no cost, creating shared infrastructure for the entire sector.
• Global coverage is planned for 2027, expanding beyond East Africa to all major coffee-producing regions worldwide through additional co-investment.
• Seven founding companies include major traders and brands that collectively handle significant volumes of global coffee production and trade.

Landscape approach differs from traditional certification schemes

Previous sustainability efforts in coffee centered on farm-level certifications and individual company supply chain programs. These approaches improved practices among participating farmers but struggled to address landscape-level deforestation. A certified farm surrounded by deforestation still contributes to regional forest loss through market incentives and infrastructure development.

The Coffee Canopy Partnership adopts a landscape perspective instead. By mapping entire coffee-growing regions, it enables identification of deforestation hotspots regardless of which company sources from affected areas. This information supports government land-use planning, community-led restoration projects, and targeted interventions in high-risk areas. Consequently, the approach addresses systemic drivers of deforestation rather than just improving individual farm practices.

This model requires collaboration among competitors who normally guard supply chain information closely. However, deforestation creates shared risks that cannot be managed individually. If coffee-growing regions lose forest cover, all companies sourcing from those areas face regulatory complications, reputation damage, and long-term supply instability. Therefore, pre-competitive collaboration makes commercial sense despite the unusual nature of sharing operational data.

For UK businesses, this landscape approach offers advantages beyond regulatory compliance. It provides better information for sourcing decisions, helps identify lower-risk origins, and supports relationship-building with suppliers who can demonstrate sustainable practices. Companies developing their own sustainable procurement strategies can use the mapping data to inform supplier selection and engage more effectively with origin communities.

The partnership’s emphasis on smallholder livelihoods reflects commercial realities in coffee production. Excluding millions of small farmers from markets due to inaccurate data would devastate supply chains and push production toward larger plantations with different environmental impacts. By providing accurate data that protects agroforestry systems, the initiative aims to keep environmentally beneficial farming methods economically viable.

Technical validation and government coordination remain critical

Satellite imagery interpretation requires careful validation, particularly when distinguishing between forest types and agroforestry systems. The partnership must ground-truth its data through field verification and local knowledge. FAO involvement helps address this challenge, but ongoing validation will determine whether the maps achieve the accuracy needed for regulatory compliance.

Government cooperation is essential for the initiative’s success. Coffee-growing countries must accept the data as legitimate for land-use planning and export certification. Some governments may resist external mapping that reveals deforestation in sensitive areas. Others may lack the institutional capacity to incorporate new data into existing systems. The partnership’s success therefore depends partly on diplomatic and capacity-building efforts beyond technical mapping.

Data governance presents additional questions. Who controls access to detailed information? How will the partnership handle disputes over data accuracy? What mechanisms exist for farmers or governments to challenge findings? These operational details will emerge as the pilot phase progresses. However, the open-access commitment suggests a relatively transparent governance model compared to proprietary company databases.

UK businesses should monitor the pilot phase results before relying entirely on partnership data for compliance purposes. Initial datasets may contain gaps or errors that improve over time. Companies should therefore view the mapping project as a valuable tool that complements rather than replaces their own due diligence systems. Combining partnership data with supplier relationships, third-party audits, and direct verification creates more robust compliance evidence.

The 2027 timeline for global coverage is ambitious. Expanding beyond East Africa requires additional funding, technology capacity, and partnerships with governments and local organizations in diverse coffee-growing regions. Success in the pilot phase should attract further investment, but delays are possible. Businesses should plan their compliance strategies assuming gradual rather than immediate global data availability.

Implications extend beyond coffee sector

The Coffee Canopy Partnership could establish a model for other agricultural commodities facing deforestation regulations. Cocoa, palm oil, soy, and cattle industries encounter similar mapping challenges and regulatory pressures. If the coffee initiative demonstrates that collaborative, landscape-level mapping delivers commercial and environmental benefits, other sectors may adopt comparable approaches.

This potential ripple effect matters for UK businesses with diverse agricultural supply chains. Lessons learned from coffee mapping could inform approaches to supply chain transparency across multiple commodities. Companies developing broader sustainability strategies might therefore follow the partnership’s progress even if they do not directly source coffee. The regulatory compliance requirements affecting coffee today often expand to other sectors tomorrow.

The involvement of satellite technology companies like Airbus suggests growing commercial opportunities in environmental monitoring services. As regulations require more detailed supply chain verification, demand for Earth observation data and AI analysis tools will increase. This creates both compliance obligations and potential business opportunities for UK companies in technology, data analysis, and advisory services.

Carbon considerations connect to deforestation issues throughout agricultural supply chains. Forests function as carbon sinks, so deforestation directly impacts climate goals. Conversely, agroforestry systems and landscape restoration contribute to carbon sequestration. Businesses addressing their carbon footprints increasingly recognize that supply chain land use significantly affects their total emissions profile.

The partnership aligns with broader sustainability trends affecting procurement decisions, investor expectations, and customer preferences. UK businesses face growing pressure to demonstrate environmental responsibility across their operations and supply chains. However, this must be backed by credible data rather than general commitments. The Coffee Canopy Partnership represents the type of systematic, verifiable approach that builds trust with stakeholders.

Where to find additional information and guidance

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office published information about its funding support for the Coffee Canopy Partnership on its official website at gov.uk. This provides context on how the initiative fits within broader UK development and environmental objectives.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization maintains extensive resources on coffee production, sustainability, and forest monitoring on its website at fao.org. Its involvement in the partnership brings decades of agricultural data expertise and international coordination experience to the mapping project.

The EU Deforestation Regulation details and implementation guidance are available through the European Commission’s environment directorate at ec.europa.eu. UK businesses exporting to EU markets should review these requirements regardless of the Coffee Canopy Partnership timeline.

Businesses seeking support with supply chain sustainability, carbon reporting, or regulatory compliance can explore resources through organizations specializing in practical implementation rather than just policy analysis. Understanding how these issues affect specific operations requires translating broad initiatives into concrete business actions.