A trailblazer in sustainability assurance, Enveritas is transforming the coffee and cocoa sectors by providing comprehensive insights into the social, economic, and environmental practices of smallholder farms.
Each year, Enveritas visits over 100,000 farms across more than 30 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, allowing them to capture a detailed picture of the conditions and challenges faced by farmers around the world.
The organization collaborates with leading coffee roasters and chocolate companies, assessing and understanding the sustainability issues within their supply chains based on Enveritas’ rigorous standards. Notably, the companies shoulder the costs of these assessments and not the farmers. This inclusive approach enables small farmers to access sustainability-based export markets, from which they might otherwise be excluded.
Enveritas awards a responsible sourcing claim to companies that meet three critical steps: verification of purchases and traceability; annual sustainability assessments of sourcing areas; and continuous improvement investments proportional to the company’s purchases.
“Around 2016, we were able to unlock new abilities to help understand what was happening on the ground and help farmers with satellite imagery. That was coupled with the evolution of deep learning,” he said. Enveritas CEO David Browning told GMI POST.
According to the CEO, the new technology has enabled local producers to increase production at far lower cost and far higher quality, while observing sustainability practices.
“This is how we re-engineered sustainability assurance and truly leverage technology to help farmers on the ground,” Browning said.
“Our goal is to eliminate poverty in the coffee sector by 2030. There’s about 12.5 million coffee farmers in the world and about half of those farms have an income below the poverty line,” he added.
Enveritas helps these farmers by providing tech support that improves their productivity and training them on basic regenerative agricultural practices, like mulching and pruning.
