Sustainable coffee purchases fall to 69.3% in GCP report

By Rebecca Stone

Sustainable coffee purchases meeting recognized sustainability standards fell to 69.3% in 2025 from a record 75.36% in 2024, even as reporting expanded to 14 major roasters and retailers and the number of eligible programs rose from 26 to 30.

What does the 2025 purchasing data show?

Global Coffee Platform (GCP), a Europe-based nonprofit membership organization supporting noncompetitive sustainability efforts across coffee, has published versions of its Sustainable Coffee Purchases Report nearly annually since 2018.

The 2025 result marks the first decline in the overall sustainable purchasing share after several reported gains: 70% in 2022, 73% in 2023 and the 75.36% record in 2024. GCP cautioned that year-to-year comparisons are complicated by changes in participating companies and eligible sustainability programs.

Lidl, NewCoffee and Ringtons joined the reporting initiative in 2025, increasing participation to 14 roasters and retailers. The expansion did not prevent the recognized share from declining, although the larger reporting base and broader program list limit direct comparisons with previous years.

What drove the decline?

GCP said the decline was largely influenced by a sourcing-practice shift at one major company. JDE Peet’s, one of the industry’s largest buyers, recorded a fall from 72.94% in 2024 to 47.04% in 2025 in purchases meeting GCP-recognized standards.

As part of what it called its journey, JDE Peet’s said it had evolved responsible sourcing from a focus on certification- and verification-based purchasing toward risk-based human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD). The change applies a separate sourcing framework to the company’s coffee purchases.

Under that approach, JDE Peet’s reported that 88.8% of its 2025 green coffee was responsibly sourced. That figure and the 47.04% GCP-recognized share measure different frameworks and cannot be treated as interchangeable without checking their definitions and reporting boundaries.

How did coffee volumes change?

The report counted approximately 1.58 million metric tons purchased through GCP-recognized sustainability programs, down 8.9% from 1.74 million metric tons in 2024. Total reported purchases, including conventional coffee, declined less than 1% to approximately 2.29 million metric tons.

That divergence matters for growers: aggregate procurement held nearly steady while volume carrying a recognized sustainability designation contracted much faster.

Second-party assurance systems—roasters’ and traders’ in-house verification programs or tailored schemes such as Enveritas—accounted for much of the decline, with purchases through those systems falling 26% in 2025. Volumes purchased through third-party certification schemes, including 4C, Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance, held relatively steady.

“These findings underline both the value and the limits of current collective reporting,” GCP said. “Sustainable coffee purchases remain the sector’s most widely aligned indicator, providing a common reference point for tracking sourcing commitments.

“At the same time, purchase volumes alone cannot show whether sustainability efforts are improving outcomes for farmers, strengthening supply chain resilience, or supporting the transition to more sustainable and regenerative coffee production.”

For growers, purchase totals establish market exposure, not net income or farm-level resilience. Reporting can document sourcing commitments, but it cannot by itself establish whether those commitments improve working conditions or returns on coffee farms.

Did geographic sourcing diversify?

Broader participation did not translate into a wider geographic base. Coffee classified as sustainable came from 30 producing origins in 2025, down from 34 in 2024. Brazil and Vietnam accounted for approximately 61% of the reported sustainable coffee volume, leaving recognized sourcing more concentrated despite the larger buyer roster.

What does procurement reform mean for farm margins?

The findings arrive as GCP and other sustainability organizations focus more heavily on commercial purchasing because poverty and economic insecurity remain widespread among coffee farmers and farmworkers despite two decades of corporate sustainability commitments and initiatives.

A 2026 Coffee Barometer analysis found that the average coffee-farming household in eight of the world’s 10 largest producing countries falls short of living-income benchmarks. For growers and farmworkers, recognition of production costs and shared risk therefore reaches directly into margins and income security.

In March, GCP joined IDH and Solidaridad in publishing shared procurement principles developed with 14 major coffee traders and roasters. The principles emphasize longer-term relationships, consideration of coffee production costs and greater consideration of shared risk.

In September, GCP expanded the effort through a collaboration with German development agency GIZ to develop specific guidance.

“I believe it’s time to collaborate on new ways of measurement to better understand what our collective efforts change for farmers,” GCP Executive Director Annette Pensel said.

The forward test is whether broader measurement and cost-conscious procurement can improve farm returns enough to close the living-income gap without further concentrating an already narrowed origin base.