Sustainability of Brazilian coffees is once again promoted at a European event

The Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council (Cecafé) participated, this week, in the webinar “Tomorrow's info session with producing countries”, held by the European Coffee Federation (ECF). It was another event in which the entity promoted the sustainability of Brazilian products and reinforced the activity's respect for ESG criteria, being a culture that has been preparing to comply with the European Union Regulation for Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR, in English), which will come into force on January 1, 2025.

With the participation of several entities, industries and trading companies from the Old Continent, and representatives from producing countries, such as Brazil, Colombia, Uganda and Costa Rica, the webinar was held for coffee producing nations to present and reinforce their experiences related to sustainability and traceability.

“We show all the sustainable characteristics of Brazilian coffee farming, with intense respect for socio-environmental governance and generation of income and a dignified life for its actors, in addition to the 'Socio-environmental Monitoring Platform Cafés do Brasil', developed by Serasa Experian in partnership with Cecafé, with with the aim that the laws of the countries of origin are endorsed and enforced, such as, in Brazil, the Forest Code, the CAR and the constitutional rights related to land use”, explains Marcos Matos, general director of the Council.

Representatives from Colombia, Uganda and Costa Rica also explained what they have done in this regard and, at the end, a debate took place between the participants. According to Matos, producers still have many doubts about how the EUDR will work in relation to the dynamics, as in the case of purchases that go through other countries before joining the EU, since the bloc itself has not externalized this operational issue.

“Despite the debates we have participated in since parliament approved the EUDR, in April 2023, there are many questions with difficult answers that Europeans need to give, but which they still do not know or have defined how. Meanwhile, we have reinforced that traceability has costs, which need to be shared among the players in the chain, as well as what we have worked and developed to achieve the required monitoring of sustainable coffees in Brazil”, he explains.

According to the general director of Cecafé, the ECF webinar was another opportunity to strengthen ties with the main buyers of Brazilian coffees in the European Union, demonstrate the sustainability of the product and that some adaptations to the EUDR are necessary.

“It was an important debate about European regulations. There are several risks related to the ways of its implementation, which is why dialogue is important to make the EUDR more flexible, as we proposed in joint actions with the Brazilian Mission to the European Union, coordinated by ambassador Pedro Miguel Da Costa e Silva, in April, directly to the EU presidency, and postpone the application of fines, until the countries supplying products to the bloc can consolidate traceability internally, as they are in different realities and moments of sustainability”, concludes Matos.