HomeArticlesGlobal multi-stakeholder initiative on the adoption of sustainable practices in the coffee sector

Global multi-stakeholder initiative on the adoption of sustainable practices in the coffee sector

Project aims to develop a rigorous social, economic, and environmental assessment tool and train producers and other stakeholders on the costs and benefits associated with sustainable practices.

Coffee drying | Megan Sheahan, Tanzania

The COSA (Committee on Sustainability Assessment) project sets forth a program for building information and management capacity in the adoption of sustainable practices in the coffee sector at the global level. As a partnership between leading research institutions in consuming and producing countries, the COSA project aims to develop a rigorous assessment tool and to also train producers and other stakeholders to measure and understand the costs and benefits of undertaking sustainable practices and adopting different sustainability initiatives.

Why COSA ?

There is considerable growth in the number and the importance of sustainability initiatives in the coffee sector. These range from long-standing ngo and civil society led standards such as Organics and Fair Trade to a number of more recent industry-led standards such as those of Starbucks C.A.F.E. Practices. This has given rise to new prospects for the promotion of sustainable production and new trading practices in supply chains. It also raises new and important questions for producers regarding the costs and benefits associated with “sustainable” practices. To date, there is considerable rhetoric and yet very little information on the broad range of actual costs and benefits of compliance with one or another sustainability initiative. Where information is available, it is usually partial and often partisan. There are few efforts to assess larger trends in the marketplace and to apply any rigorous measures that could apply to a broad range of initiatives.

As a result, coffee producers —as well as consumers, policy makers, and companies— lack objective information on the direct and indirect costs and benefits of becoming compliant with social, economic and environmental sustainability initiatives. To the extent that producers depend upon coffee production for their livelihoods, there is a corresponding need for tools that are both practical and simple to use that enable them to better manage their farms by directly assessing the costs and benefits of adopting prescribed “sustainable” practices or subscribing to one or another sustainability initiative.

Recognizing this need,  COSA seeks to generate science-based information on the social, economic and environmental impacts of the main coffee sustainability initiatives operative in the coffee sector.

The primary goal is to provide a tool with which farmers and policy makers can make rational choices about sustainability based on their own particular local conditions and needs. COSA will facilitate this by enabling them to calculate their own relative costs and benefits of becoming involved in one or another sustainability initiative.

Although the project expects to provide the most rigorous and up-to-date information on the sustainability initiatives in the sector it will not endeavor to rank the effectiveness of the respective programmes. Where appropriate, it will develop country-specific policy briefs aimed at aiding countries to more cost-effectively implement sustainable practices, in accordance with regional specificities.

COSA Beneficiaries

The COSA project benefits four stakeholders:

1. Producers require concrete and locally relevant information on the expected financial and time investments required. COSA will provide producers with information, training and specific tools to both select and manage any sustainable practices they choose. Producers need specific help to gain a better understanding of the financial and other risks associated with coffee  production and entry into sustainable markets; gather and monitor data on the social, economic and environmental impacts; and manage implementation of sustainable practices in the most cost effective manner.
2. Traders, manufacturers and retailers have a direct interest in maintaining the stability, quality, and good management of their supply base. Fundamentally, the COSA tool will contribute information to improve farm management and investment choices that make producers and chains more sustainable. The COSA project will also serve industry players by providing a real time indication of production trends, challenges, and opportunities related to the adoption of sustainable practices.
3. Policy makers need clear and objective information on how different sustainable practices impact producers and their communities. COSA will provide an independent and objective platform for collecting such information. COSA 's multi-criteria analysis is adaptable and allows different policy makers to apply COSA data to different assessment frameworks based on their diverse needs or policy priorities.
4. Standards bodies need to ensure the ultimate impacts of the criteria and systems they employ to meet their goals. COSA outputs will help them by providing a realistic and objective scientific basis for measuring such impacts. They also benefit from saving considerable time and expense to develop a proprietary set of credible metrics.

How COSA  Works

Conventional approaches to cost-benefit analysis are typically defined by their use of a variety of different valuation instruments that convert to monetary or economic equivalents. In some cases the COSA methodology can build on accepted innovations in valuing environmental or social services via economic measurement but it intends to go further. While such analysis is useful for getting comparable results along a single scale, monetary valuation is insufficient and in some cases even inappropriate, in the assessment of the overall sustainability impacts (e.g. costs and benefits) due to the difficulty of valuing social and environmental attributes in this manner.

Although the COSA project will aim to provide the most accurate measure of the economic inputs and outputs associated with participation in recognized sustainability initiatives available to date, it will also apply a “multi-criteria analysis” approach in the measurement and treatment of social, economic and environmental data.

Multi-criteria analysis consists of measuring and reporting impacts based on a number of distinct variables rather than a single (e.g. monetary) value. The multi-criteria approach is particularly suited to the philosophy underlying the COSA research which recognizes the diversity in the sector and ultimately intends to leave final decisions and evaluations to the relevant decision makers themselves, rather than provide a rigid or “one size fits all” evaluation.

Through an extensive literature review and a year-long international consultative process drawing from more than fifty experts and representatives in the coffee and sustainable development sectors, the COSA project has identified a preliminary set of key criteria deemed to be of fundamental importance in assessing the costs and benefits of specified practices/initiatives from a sustainability perspective. These macro areas form the basis of COSA ’s multi criteria analysis.

Example Output from COSA Multi-Criteria Analysis

In applying the multi-criteria analysis approach, COSA will:

• Assess compliance costs and benefits as both the direct (i.e. costs of documentation, verification, or certification) and indirect costs and benefits (i.e. the costs of learning).
• Include an effort to measure both tangible and “intangible” benefits associated with sustainable practices.
• Capture the differences experienced in different eco-systems, geographic regions of the world, and even larger plantations and small farmers.
• Limit measurements primarily to the farm with a secondary focus on the supply chain, producer organizations, community, and market.
• Be conducted initially over three years to determine real changes in comparison to control groups.

On the basis of COSA ’s multi criteria analysis, a wide range of end-users will be able to apply their specific value framework to reach locally-relevant conclusions in the application of sustainable practices. COSA ’s multi-criteria analysis and corresponding data set are designed to serve, to the degree possible, a wide variety of other analytic systems including: Relevance Tree Analysis; Cross Impact Analysis; Lifecycle Analysis; Emergy Analysis and Ecological Footprinting.

Finally, although the COSA project is specifically focused on the coffee sector, it is being structured to fill a need for similar information and tools in a variety of agricultural products where market access is increasingly being conditioned on compliance with specific social and environmental requirements.

Draft Themes for Measurement

COSA partners will test the draft criteria in the field and seek input from stakeholders and more producers. We recognize the need for simplicity and ease of application for any tool in order to facilitate its application across the widest range of growing conditions and regions possible. With this in mind we have identified a select list of “key indicators” that correspond to the “macro” criteria.

No practical field measure can test every variable that contributes to sustainability and yet the COSA methodology has distilled key indicators that correspond to recognized best practices among the many initiatives, international bodies, and sectoral experts.These key indicators will be supported by a “field guide” that specifies a list of direct questions and sampling techniques designed to answer the identified indicators or macro criteria.

We also recognize that a number of the indicators may not always be fully answerable, especially by smaller producers. For this reason, and to ensure accuracy the field guide is initially being implemented by professional auditors from the region and a local extension agent with support from national institutions and coffee bodies.

In the interests of conceptual simplicity, we have not included the full list of specific questions and instructions for data gathering. This will be available in the field guide and will be subject to substantial review over the course of the testing process. Below are the core components of the draft macro criteria and key indicators.

The COSA Management Team

The COSA project is managed and implemented by the Sustainable Coffee Partnership’s Committee on Sustainability Assessment which consists of the International Instituted for Sustainable Development (IISD), Centre de Cooperation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Developpement (CIRAD), INCAE - Centro de Inteligencia sobre los Mercados Sostenibles (CIMS), and Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Ensenanza (CATIE).

In recognition of the sensitivity of the subject matter, the project organizers have established a number of “feedback loops”, including a 50+ member Advisory Panel, a number of producer representatives, and a Scientific Committee in order to ensure that the project maintains both stakeholder relevance and scientific rigour in its development and implementation. The work is open to comments and suggestions from all sources. The project development team has also benefited from the comments and support of delegates of the International Coffee Organization which unanimously endorsed the project in 2006.

To learn more about COSA please visit the COSA homepage on the IISD website.

by Jason Potts