Building Climate ResilienCy
Welcome to The Understory
The Rainforest Alliance’s newsletter for the passionate supporters who share our mission to create a better future for people and nature. un·der·sto·ry [noun]: A layer of vegetation beneath the main canopy of a forest
A MESSAGE FROM OUR ALLIANCE Dr. Celia A. Harvey, Climate Director
SNAPSHOT
A Landscape-Level Approach to Tackling Climate Change
OUR ALLIANCE IN ACTION
Coffee That Leaves a Lighter Footprint & Seeds of Change: How a Kenyan Farmer Regenerated Her Land
FEATURE STORY
Talking Climate-Smart Coffee with Miguel Gamboa
MEET OUR ALLIANCE MEMBERS
Allegro Coffee, Joe Coffee Company, Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP), O’Melveny & Myers LLP (OMM), and OXO
CONTACT US
Cover photo: Nice & Serious
OUR MISSION:
The Rainforest Alliance is an international nonprofit organization creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities.
RAINFOREST ALLIANCE COFFEE CERTIFICATION BY THE NUMBERS
* as of July 2024
26
Our multifaceted approach to shaping a more sustainable world: hectares of certified farms metric tons per year countries certified farmers of global production
CERTIFICATION
We certify products that are grown in accordance with our standards, which support environmental, social, and economic sustainability.
SUPPLY CHAIN
SERVICES
We advise companies on how to drive sustainability within their supply chains, source responsibly, monitor progress, and innovate to accelerate transformation.
1,876,400
554,029
1,690,400
17%
LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT
We work with farmers and forest communities to conserve and restore landscapes while improving livelihoods.
ADVOCACY
We work with companies and governments to advance policies that promote sustainability improvements, human rights (such as gender equality), and youth education.
aCCeleRating Climate aCtiOn
DR. CELIA A. HARVEY | CLIMATE DIRECTOR
Climate change is the defining challenge of the 21st century. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and more frequent extreme weather events are already affecting communities, ecosystems, and economies around the world. Farmers and forest communities are particularly at risk, as climate change reduces crop yields, accelerates land degradation, causes water scarcity, reduces food security, and undermines farmer livelihoods and well-being. Unless urgent action is taken, these impacts will continue to intensify.
Recent studies suggest that to avoid the most dangerous consequences of climate change, the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and reduce them to zero by 2050. Achieving these goals will require transforming how farms, forests, and rural landscapes are managed. Across the globe, we need to reduce deforestation and degradation, the overuse of agrochemicals and fertilizers, and other practices that release greenhouse gases. We also need to incentivize the broad adoption of sustainable and climatesmart practices, such as agroforestry and land
“As part of our 2030 goals, we have designed a new climate change strategy to intensify and accelerate action.”
restoration, which sequester and store carbon in plants and soil, while building climate resilience.
The Rainforest Alliance has an impressive track record of working with farm and forest communities, companies, governments, civilsociety organizations, and other partners. Together, we promote climate-smart agriculture, conserve forests and biodiversity, manage natural resources, and improve producer livelihoods. Our work has helped to reduce emissions and build climate resilience on farms and in forests across the globe.
Now, as part of our 2030 goals, we have designed a new climate change strategy to intensify and accelerate action. Built on three pillars, this strategy promotes locally led and nature-based solutions such as regenerative and climate-smart agriculture, forest conservation and restoration,
deforestation-free supply chains, and integrated landscape management.
Our first pillar focuses on communities. We will help farmers and forest managers identify their climate vulnerabilities and increase their resilience to future threats while reducing emissions. We will also build their capacity to lead climate action—providing technical assistance and mobilizing the investment necessary to sustainably manage their farms and protect their forests.
The second pillar centers on our work with agricultural and forest companies, mitigating climate change and building resilience throughout their supply chains. That means helping them assess climate risks, source deforestation-free products, and implement actions to reduce their carbon footprints. It also means collecting accurate data to support sustainability claims and spur greater investment in regenerative agriculture, agroforestry, community forestry, and other naturebased climate solutions.
The third pillar addresses the wider context in which these communities and companies exist.
We will facilitate increased finance to help farmers and forest managers reduce emissions and make their communities more resilient, as well as urge policymakers and industry leaders to implement regulations that promote deforestation-free supply chains and more sustainable land use. Finally, we will collaborate with civil society and deploy educational campaigns that harness the immense power of consumers to drive change.
While these goals already underpin our work, this new strategy will integrate climate adaptation and mitigation more seamlessly into our programs, allowing us to rapidly scale up our impact.
We’re in the decisive decade for action. To avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change, the world must act now. The steps we take over the next few years can lead us toward a climateresilient future, one where people and nature thrive in harmony. As always, the Rainforest Alliance is committed to achieving these goals in partnership with communities, companies, and the rest of our allies. We hope you’ll join our efforts to put the world on the path toward a low-emissions and climateresilient future.
Photo: Nu Image Communications
a l andsCaPe-level aPPROaCH
tO taCKling Climate CHange
Situated between the Andes Mountains and the Amazon, the Peruvian region of San Martín is a biodiversity-rich area. Home to various Indigenous groups, it is also the country’s third-largest producer of coffee. While the crop is integral to the economic survival of local communities, climate change poses serious threats.
The Rainforest Alliance has long been active in San Martín, particularly within its Lamas province, a landscape that includes the Cordillera Escalera Regional Conservation Area. Between 2021 and 2023, we used LandScale—a comprehensive tool for assessing risk and measuring sustainability impact at the landscape level—to better understand the challenges facing local communities. When farmers’ crop yields are low, pressure mounts to produce more, driving the establishment of new farms and cattle ranches. The deforestation that results increases greenhouse gas emissions, threatens water sources, imperils wildlife, decreases coffee yields and quality, and increases poverty and malnutrition—perpetuating a vicious cycle.
Using the assessment’s findings, we collaborated with local communities, businesses, and the government to develop an integrated Landscape Action Plan involving all stakeholder groups, through the Business Case for Collective Landscape Action initiative, supported by USAID. We are helping Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee farmers apply climate-smart practices that reduce emissions
while increasing yields, as well as providing business training and links to coffee buyers and financing. We are also equipping Indigenous communities with digital and business skills, to support the growth of community-led enterprises built around sustainable forest resources like latex and Amazonian cotton. Thanks to these joint efforts, Lamas’ communities are on a path toward reduced emissions and greater resilience.
LAMAS PROVINCE
Nearly 60 percent of the landscape is Amazon rainforest, and eight Indigenous communities hold title to 12.6 percent of its area. The main economic activity is farming, followed by livestock production. In partnership with our allies, we aim to reduce the province’s annual deforestation rate by 15 percent by the year 2030.
LA CORDILLERA ESCALERA
Created in 2005, this regional conservation area covers 21 percent of the Lamas landscape and is home to many different plant and animal species, including the white-hearted glass frog, the Amazonian tapir, and a wide variety of orchids. The area also provides water to more than 220,000 people.
LA CORDILLERA ESCALERA
LAMAS PROVINCE
SAN MARTIN
PERU
COffee tHat leaves a ligHteR fOOtPRint
Rainforest Alliance certification has promoted “climate-smart” practices since well before the term was even coined, helping farmers reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to current and future climatic changes. As part of our overall climate strategy (see p. 4), we are also working directly with companies that source Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee beans, helping them avoid and reduce emissions within their supply chains and rigorously measuring their impact.
One way that we are helping certified coffee farms improve their resilience to climate change is by supporting their transition to regenerative agriculture. In Honduras, for example, we are working with coffee-industry leader Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) and exporter Molinos de Honduras (Volcafe Honduras) to measure the emissions produced by 90 certified farms and quantify the emissions reductions associated with regenerative
practices, customized to the particular needs of each farm. Specifically, farmers are taking steps—such as increasing soil cover, integrating agroforestry, and using organic fertilizers—that are designed to support the improvement of soil health, emissions reductions, and biodiversity protection while helping to boost livelihoods and resilience. This initiative is currently being implemented in the country’s Cortés and Santa Bárbara regions.
KDP has also set up a regenerative transition fund to provide these certified farmers with financial and technical assistance. This component is critical for ensuring that farmers receive sufficient support in transitioning to a more regenerative approach to coffee production. Our collaborative effort will contribute to KDP’s goal of supporting regenerative agriculture and conservation on 250,000 acres of land by 2030.
seeds Of CHange: How a Kenyan Farmer Regenerated Her Land
For Christine Karimi of Kenya, regenerative farming offered a lifeline at a difficult time. After losing her husband, she had to figure out how to provide for herself and her two children. That’s when she began cultivating coffee on less than two acres in Kathakwa village, located on the forested slopes of Mount Kenya.
After struggling to produce coffee from old trees on her monoculture farm, she attended a Rainforest Alliance training, where she learned about climate-smart, regenerative agriculture. This approach helps Rainforest Alliance Certified farmers revitalize their soils, support biodiversity, improve yields, and reduce agrochemical use. By implementing these changes, Karimi is boosting her farm’s resilience to climate change.
The 2022 training equipped her with the knowledge and skills to combat soil erosion, apply mulch, plant cover crops to conserve moisture, and manage her tree canopies to boost fruit production. After replacing many of her old coffee plants with a more diseaseresistant variety, she decreased her fungicide use, which lowered her expenses. Today, her beans grow alongside avocados, macadamia, mangoes, and bananas, which provide shade and supplement her income. Karimi also pays her new knowledge forward, training other farmers in the region.
For her efforts, she is rewarded with increased profits. “As a Rainforest Alliance Certified farmer, producing good quality coffee has helped secure premium prices at auction,” she says. This money is helping her educate her children, purchase real estate to rent out, and secure a better future for her family.
talKing Climate-smaRt COffee with Miguel Gamboa
A native of Guatemala, Miguel Gamboa is the Rainforest Alliance’s coffee lead. In this role, Gamboa is a connector, linking our field staff and the farmers they serve with the rest of the coffee supply chain.
More than 20 years ago, his first job was with a coffee exporter, before moving to the nonprofit sector, but his passion for coffee is in his DNA: His grandfather used to grow the crop on his small farm in Cobán. In our interview, Gamboa explains how climate-smart practices are integral to Rainforest Alliance coffee certification.
How is climate change affecting smallholder coffee farmers?
There’s been an increase in pests and diseases, as well as extreme weather. Sudden heavy rains heighten the risk of fungal diseases, which can damage the crop, but droughts and frosts are just as difficult to address in some landscapes. In the mountains of Colombia, for example, you cannot install irrigation systems on those slopes.
One of the biggest climate impacts we are seeing is migration. If farmers cannot survive economically, they will leave their farms. In Honduras and Guatemala, people are departing for the U.S., and families are being separated. Countries are losing their rural labor force, making it harder to apply regenerative practices, which demand long-term commitment.
How does our standard promote climate mitigation and resilience?
To meet our requirements, coffee farmers take steps like planting shade trees, preventing water
Photos: Creagh Cross
pollution, and managing waste. Coffee processing can consume a lot of water, but our standard calls for using recycled water for wet milling [separating the bean from the coffee cherry]. We also promote clean energy—encouraging farmers to use alternative energy sources, like pruned branches and other processing byproducts as fuel for drying coffee instead of cutting down trees.
On certified farms, erosion is minimized by establishing natural barriers near waterways, and farmers rely on biological options to control pests. They are allowed to apply certain agrochemicals, with restrictions, but they must use protective equipment, and safeguard workers and local communities.
How does risk assessment factor into this work?
Our standard is based on risk assessment. Farmers use our checklist to do a self-assessment and internal inspections before they are audited, and they must comply with local laws. We also promote agroforestry systems that combine fruit production, trees, and herbs. This provides farming households with access to food or additional income generated by the sale of these products, which makes them
“One of the biggest climate impacts we are seeing is migration. If farmers cannot survive economically, they will leave their farms.”
less dependent on coffee, while also supporting biodiversity and the regeneration of their land.
What role does the rest of the supply chain play?
It must support these improvements. It’s not fair to expect farmers to do it all alone. That’s why we connect with the market, explaining exactly what producers are doing and getting everyone involved. It’s an integrated approach. When traders, exporters, and others facilitate access to finance, farmers get the resources they need to make changes that benefit everyone.
What positive impacts have you seen?
Certification is a powerful tool that can boost prices, reduce farm costs, improve access to new markets, and help farmers comply with new and evolving regulations such as the EUDR. Two decades ago, sustainability was seen as something extra, but you can no longer conceive of coffee production without it, and the impact is visible in the field. The farmers I’ve met will proudly say things like, “This bird used to be here when my grandfather was running the farm. Now it has come back.”
Thank you to our Climate Week NYC 2024 Sponsors:
Founded in 1977, Allegro Coffee Company is a specialty coffee roaster and retailer based in the United States. When the company was first established in Boulder, Colorado, we were committed to finding a better way of sourcing highquality coffees from farmers who are dedicated to environmental stewardship and worker livelihood. Forty years later, we are still guided by that same vision. We remain focused on environmental stewardship, biodiversity conservation, and the dramatic impacts of climate change on our coffee supply chains.
Allegro Coffee and the Rainforest Alliance have worked in partnership for more than 15 years to raise awareness of environmental concerns along the entire supply chain, from our farmers and traders all the way through to the end consumer. In 1997, Allegro Coffee was acquired by Whole Foods Market. Today, we continue to be a prominent player in the specialty coffee market and serve as the primary coffee roaster for all Whole Foods Market brands.
At Joe Coffee Company, sustainability is a critical aspect of our sourcing policy. Since we began roasting our own coffee in 2012, we’ve prioritized sourcing a minimum of 80 percent of our coffee menu from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms, including all our signature blends and single-origin offerings like La Familia Guarnizo.
We chose to seek out Rainforest Alliance Certified coffees because this certification supports the three pillars of sustainability: social equity, economic viability, and environmental protection. Independent auditors rigorously
evaluate all supply chain actors, from farmers to importers to exporters, to ensure they meet these standards. As stewards of the coffee in a very long value chain that begins many years before it makes it into your cup, roasters like us are also audited to confirm compliance with the high standards.
Acknowledging the cost of certification as well as its mutual benefits, we have partnered with importer Caravela and farmer group El Paraíso in Colombia to subsidize costs. Wherever possible, we choose to reinforce our dedication to ethical sourcing and the well-being of coffee communities worldwide.
Keurig Dr Pepper’s supply chain strategy focuses on a foundational commitment to responsible sourcing of our priority inputs, supporting regenerative agriculture and conservation, and improving livelihoods for the people in our upstream supply chain.
The Rainforest Alliance is an important partner that enables us to use our buying power for good. In line with our commitment to responsible sourcing, the organization provides assurance that the coffee and cocoa we purchase through its certification program adheres to industry-aligned ESG criteria.
Together, we lead initiatives to drive meaningful impact in the coffee industry. In Honduras and Colombia, we are measurably boosting farmer income through innovative investment and procurement interventions. In Honduras, we’re also building a new model that layers regenerative outcomes over Rainforest Alliance certification and supports farmers through this transition.
Founded in 1885, O’Melveny is one of the world’s leading law firms, with 800 lawyers in 18 global offices. As part of its longstanding relationship with the Rainforest Alliance, O’Melveny has advised on a broad range of legal issues.
Eric Rothenberg, a Rainforest Alliance board member, leads O’Melveny’s ESG Task Force and partner John Rousakis leads O’Melveny’s Environmental, Safety, and Health Practices. O’Melveny provides counsel to the Rainforest Alliance and others on ESG-related matters.
More than a decade ago, O’Melveny established its sustainability initiative, committing to follow best practices for environmental and energy stewardship. The firm is a silver status member of Vorgate (a law-firm consortium dedicated to sustainability) and was among the first firms to join the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and American Bar Association’s Climate Challenge, conforming to best practices for paper use, waste management, and energy conservation under the EPA’s Energy Star® program. O’Melveny is actively engaged with a third-party consultant for carbon footprint operations analysis and is working toward further reducing its environmental impact.
OXO is a proud member of 1% for the Planet. We’re giving time, money, and resources to nonprofits on the frontlines of food-related issues in three vital areas: sustainable food systems, food education, and food recovery and access. We also pledge to do our part and look within, investigating aspects of our business to create environmentally responsible solutions.
For over 30 years, we’ve designed products that make every day better at home. Now, we’re committing to making every day better for the planet. As part of this journey, we are thrilled to share that our recently launched OXO Angled Measuring Cup—made with Tritan Renew® and crafted with 50 percent recycled content, certified through a mass-balance allocation process—has been recognized with the prestigious 2024 Green Good Design award!
Photo: Joost Bastmeijer
