Our Partnerships Manager Sally Seddon arrived at the World Coffee Summit in London’s Queen Elizabeth II Centre on Wednesday the 13th of September for a day of networking, learning and engaging on all things coffee, climate and impact.
Sally said:
“The event was a great opportunity to learn more about the challenges facing the coffee industry, mainly as a result of climate change, but also involving the need to address the imbalance of money in the supply chain. Vanusia Nogueira of the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) put it very succinctly when she highlighted the ICO’s efforts to work towards a prosperous income for all agriculture supply chains:
Disproportionate Impacts on Developing Economies
UCL’s Professor Mark Maslin shared some academic research about a less reported impact of rising temperatures through climate change, which showed “In 2021, heat and humidity led to the loss of 470 billion hours of work, amounting to an estimated $700 billion. In poor countries, the agricultural sector incurred 82% of these average losses. When you consider the impact of heat and humidity (both increasing due to climate change) on coffee supply chains, much of the work of smallholder producers happens outside” Think about it, then act on it.
The event involved keynote speeches from passionate Ambassadors, inspiring presentations from academics and industry experts as well as panels including ‘Towards Climate-Positive Regenerative Solutions to Achieve Net Zero’ with a focus on deforestation, sourcing and legislation, as well as 'Innovative and Impact Investing towards Sustainability' with a focus on ethical investing, climate and sustainable finance including perspectives from Fairtrade International during which Shared Interest was acknowledged for our work supporting coffee producers with access to finance.
Find out more about how we are working to deliver innovative and regenerative solutions to the challenges that threaten the agricultural business sector by visiting the World Coffee Summit website here.
