Six of the world's largest coffee traders and roasters have formed the Coffee Canopy Partnership, a joint initiative using satellite technology to track deforestation risk across global supply chains. Members include JDE Peet's, Tchibo, Louis Dreyfus Company, Neumann Kaffee Group, Touton, and Sucafina.
The partnership draws on satellite imagery from Airbus, analysed through artificial intelligence models, to produce detailed maps of coffee-growing landscapes and flag areas where farms intersect with forest cover or recent land clearance.
East Africa is the first region in scope. Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda will be mapped in the initial phase—countries that supply a substantial portion of the world's coffee and where smallholder farming is the dominant production model.
Regulation is reshaping what coffee companies must prove
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requires companies selling agricultural commodities in the EU to demonstrate that their products have not been grown on land deforested after December 2020. This means precise farm-level geolocation data and verified land-use history for every link in the supply chain. Larger companies must comply first, with the deadline for smaller operators set for mid-2027.
Coffee supply chains are particularly exposed. Production is spread across millions of smallholder farms, many of which lack formal documentation or have never been spatially mapped.
Why current maps are part of the problem
The initiative targets a data gap that has long complicated compliance efforts. Existing land classification systems often cannot tell the difference between natural forests and agroforestry—the practice of growing crops such as coffee beneath a canopy of trees.
JDE Peet's put the stakes plainly: 'This could exclude millions of smallholder farmers from important markets, despite the fact that they practice sustainable farming methods, because current maps classify their shade-grown coffee or agroforestry land incorrectly as forest.'
The partnership frames this as an industry-wide issue, aiming to resolve the 'historical lack of precise mapping data which has often resulted in coffee farm… being misidentified as a natural forest.'
Higher-resolution AI classification is intended to resolve these distinctions—enabling companies to demonstrate compliance without excluding producers who manage land responsibly. The mapping data will also be used to identify degraded areas suitable for restoration.
Full global coverage targeted by 2027
The partnership plans to extend its mapping work beyond East Africa, with full coverage of global coffee-growing regions targeted by 2027—closely aligned with the EUDR's final implementation deadline.
The initiative points to a broader shift in how companies approach ESG obligations. Traceability is moving from a reporting exercise to a verification requirement, and the tools needed to meet that bar are becoming infrastructure in their own right. For commodity markets beyond coffee, the model may prove a template worth watching.