Our Approach
Smallholder coffee farming families produce around 80% of the world’s coffee and are already navigating the pressures of a changing climate. We work with these families and their communities to strengthen climate resilience and advance locally grounded adaptation. To guide this process, we follow a five‑step approach.
This approach combines field experience, scientific insight, and continuous learning with local actors. Each step builds on collaboration with coffee farming families and the organizations around them, ensuring that climate‑smart knowledge is practical, shared openly, and grounded in real conditions.
We are active in Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, and Indonesia.
The five steps
c&c follows a five-step participatory and inclusive approach.
Setting the scene gives an overview of how relevant climate change is for the local living and working environment of the farmer.
Assessment of challenges creates an understanding of the impacts of climate change on the farmer’s livelihood and their coffee production and identifies individual suitable adaptation options.
Adaptation planning prioritizes adaptation options and structures their implementation.
Validation and implementation facilitates the implementation of the selected adaptation measures and their validation on a small scale before they are disseminated to benefit more farmers.
Systematization monitors and evaluates the progress, results, and lessons learned. This step builds the foundation to restart the cyclical process as it provides the lessons learned and evidence on which to base future adaptation approaches. In addition, the climate is continuously changing, which means adaptation efforts need to be continuously revised.
The coffee&climate toolbox is a digital training platform for smallholder coffee farming families worldwide. It offers proven climate-smart practices as step by step tools designed for use in the field. A dedicated trainer section provides resources for extensionists, enabling them to work with farming families towards climate-smart coffee production.
Our Communities of Practice bring together cooperatives, extension agents, NGOs, company field staff, and researchers in collaborative spaces for open exchange. Participants explore climate smart approaches, compare experiences, and turn shared learning into locally grounded strategies.
The initiative for coffee&climate (c&c) brings coffee companies, NGOs, research organizations, and public institutions together in a neutral, pre competitive space. Together, we co-create and share climate-smart solutions that benefit farming families across coffee regions. Join us in building a more resilient future for coffee.
Do you want to know more about the initiative for coffee&climate?