JDE Peet's N.V.: Coffee sector leaders launch industry-first global mapping initiative to accelerate the transition towards a deforestation-free coffee sector

PRESS RELEASE

Amsterdam, April 22, 2026

The Coffee Canopy Partnership, initiated by JDE Peet's (now part of Keurig Dr Pepper) was launched today to advance the identification and remediation of coffee-related deforestation.

Developed in collaboration with leading coffee companies including JDE Peet's, Louis Dreyfus Company, Sucden, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, Touton, Sucafina, and Tchibo, the Partnership will create the world's first comprehensive, openly-accessible map of global coffee production to identify deforestation risks, support landscape restoration and protect the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers.

Using Airbus's advanced satellite technology, the Partnership will map coffee farms across coffee-growing landscapes, identify areas of forest loss, and work with governments to restore landscapes and prevent future deforestation.

The Partnership initiative launches with an East Africa pilot covering Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda - mapping 1.2 million square kilometers of coffee landscapes. Building on the pilot's success, the Coffee Canopy Partnership will aim to achieve worldwide coverage of all coffee-growing regions in 2027 through expanded industry and institutional co-investment.

The Partnership aims to support coffee-related deforestation remediation efforts over time, subject to the availability of validated data and in collaboration with governments and local communities, with the objective of contributing to landscape restoration and reducing future forest loss.

The pilot phase of the initiative is supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and endorsed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Laurent Sagarra, VP Engagement at JDE Peet's, said:

"A sustainable coffee industry is one in which coffee production no longer contributes to forest loss. To help advance this vision, we are launching the Coffee Canopy Partnership. The Partnership is designed to move beyond fragmented, company-led deforestation initiatives by fostering collaboration at a landscape scale - supporting efforts to map and safeguard coffee-growing regions, not just individual supply chains. This is not another certification scheme; it is a sector-led initiative aimed at strengthening collective action to help keep forests vibrant and reduce the risk of coffee-driven deforestation over time. We warmly invite all players in the coffee sector to join us."

Eric Even, Head of Space Digital at Airbus Defence and Space, said:

"Leveraging our very high-resolution Pléiades and Pléiades Neo satellite imagery combined with advanced AI capabilities, Airbus helps identify deforestation risk and protect our world's forests, while simultaneously empowering food producers and smallholder farmers with the transparency and reliable data needed to strengthen their resilience and build a truly sustainable supply chain."

A transformative approach to sustainable coffee

Under the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), coffee grown on land classified as forest after December 2020 may not enter EU markets. This threatens to exclude millions of smallholder farmers from key markets, despite their sustainable farming practices, simply because existing maps incorrectly classify their agroforestry or shade-grown coffee production land as forest.

In this context, the Coffee Canopy Partnership addresses a fundamental challenge within the sector: the historical lack of precise mapping data, which has frequently resulted in coffee farms - specifically shade-grown and agroforestry systems - being misidentified as natural forest. By leveraging sophisticated high-resolution satellite imagery (up to 30cm resolution), combined with artificial intelligence and on-the-ground verification, the Partnership will establish two definitive datasets:

• A 2020-2021 baseline map showing the true extent of coffee cultivation, correcting widespread misclassifications of coffee agroforestry systems as forest.
• A 2024-2025 updated map to support the identification of potential new coffee production land and areas where forest change has occurred since 2020.

These maps are planned to be integrated into a transparent, openly accessible geospatial platform, designed to enable farmers, governments and the coffee industry to access data that can support sustainability planning and forest protection.

Statements from Partnership Members & supporting institutions

Kate McCoy, Director, Partnerships for Forests (P4F), said: "Partnerships for Forests, funded by UK International Development, is proud to help launch the first phase of the Coffee Canopy Partnership, alongside the other consortium members. Our support is helping to set up an open and transparent monitoring platform to verify deforestation free coffee production. Phase one will deliver clear, accurate maps showing where coffee is grown and where forests are under pressure across six East African countries - including P4F priority countries in the region - Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. By creating this shared foundation, we are developing a proof of concept that can then be scaled globally to help the whole sector move towards a unified, landscape level approach that protects forests and improves market access for farmers."

Julian Fox, Team Leader on Forest Monitoring, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said: "The initiative led by JDE Peet's and Airbus is well aligned with the AIM4Commodities program (Accelerating Innovative Monitoring for Forests and Commodities), through which FAO promotes transparent and sustainable commodity production, encouraging sector-wide transformations toward open and inclusive data and technical solutions, protecting forests whilst leaving no one behind."

Pablo von Waldenfels, Managing Director Corporate Responsibility, Tchibo, said: "Protecting global forests is essential for climate change mitigation, and our industry has a shared responsibility to ensure coffee is produced without deforestation. A fundamental challenge has been the lack of precise mapping data, which undermines effective conservation efforts and threatens to unfairly exclude millions of smallholder farmers from the market. The Coffee Canopy Partnership directly addresses this by creating the world's first comprehensive, reliable, openly-accessible map of coffee landscapes. This serves as a shared public good, enabling the entire sector - from roasters and governments to the farmers themselves - to collectively prevent deforestation, restore landscapes, and secure a sustainable future for coffee."

Olivier Laboulle, Global Head of Coffee Sustainability and Social Impact, Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), said: "In a context of accelerating environmental challenges, the Coffee Canopy Partnership represents a meaningful step toward more sustainable coffee production. By bringing together Airbus' satellite imagery and AI expertise with the insight and capabilities of leading coffee companies, this collaboration has the potential to deliver tangible, long-term benefits for both farmers and the environment.

As a leading global merchant and processor of agricultural goods, active across the entire coffee value chain, we see strong data foundations and collaboration as essential enablers of sustainability at scale. We are therefore proud to stand alongside like-minded partners to support this initiative that fully aligns with LDC's own environmental goals."

Marten Sievers, CEO EMEA, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, said: "This Partnership proves that the coffee sector can move beyond fragmented efforts and build something genuinely shared. By working pre competitively, we can evaluate what works at scale, adjust where it doesn't, and raise the bar together. If we want deforestation free coffee, we need to learn as a sector, not compete on solutions the planet urgently needs."

Justin Archer, Head of Sustainability, Sucafina, said: "The Coffee Canopy Project will give the coffee industry something it has been sorely lacking: a single source of truth on where deforestation risk is real. It is also a rare example of the kind of pre-competitive collaboration coffee sustainability needs more of - pooling knowledge so we can stop duplicating efforts and direct collective resources where they matter most for farmers and the long-term integrity of the supply chain."

Veronika Semelkova, Head of Sustainability, Sucden Coffee, said: "The Canopy Project sets a new benchmark for how the EUDR can be implemented in a way that genuinely tackles deforestation. It demonstrates unprecedented leadership, ambition, and collaboration in the pre-competitive space, delivering an open-source, aligned methodology that the entire sector can build on."

Joseph Larrose, Deputy Managing Director - Sustainability, Supply Chain, Innovation & Communication, Touton, said: "We are proud to join forces with our peers and Airbus in the Coffee Canopy Partnership. At Touton, we believe that trust, shared responsibility and innovation are essential to building a deforestation-free coffee sector. With strong roots in East Africa, we see the critical importance of a common, science-based mapping reference recognised by producers, governments and industry alike. It strengthens the robustness of our data, supports compliance, and enables effective collective action on the ground. This partnership is also a key milestone in delivering on our commitment to no deforestation by 2035."

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Notes to Editors

• For JDE Peet's, the Coffee Canopy Partnership builds on more than a decade of work to prevent deforestation and is part of the company's broader Nature Transition Plan, aligned with the Global Biodiversity Framework, Science Based Targets for Nature and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.
• Airbus Defence and Space provides satellite data and mapping services to the Partnership on a commercial basis, using sophisticated very high-resolution imagery and AI-powered analysis.
• The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) provides methodological guidance and quality assurance protocols and will use the 2020 coffee map to improve global forest mapping by excluding coffee production land under shade or agroforestry systems.
• The Coffee Canopy Partnership's East Africa pilot will map coffee production across Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda - covering 1.2 million square kilometers. Deliveries will begin in April 2026, with the full pilot dataset completed by June 2026.

• Specific goals of the Coffee Canopy Partnership include:
  • Enable deforestation remediation: By comparing forest maps with coffee production land data, the project will identify instances of actual coffee-related deforestation and engage with origin countries and communities into their remediation.
  • Provide transparent data: The Coffee Canopy Partnership will give all stakeholders - from smallholder farmers to governments - access to reliable, science-based information for decision-making, helping remediate affected areas and prevent future forest loss.
  • Protect farmer livelihoods: Accurate identification of coffee production land under shade or agroforestry systems will prevent unfair market exclusion. Farmers will gain access to coffee zone maps via an open geospatial platform, allowing them to verify whether their land has been correctly identified as coffee cultivation. Full high-resolution data is available to origin governments at no cost.
  • Support producing countries: Governments in coffee-producing countries will gain a powerful tool for monitoring and enforcement of deforestation-free production, supporting the sustainability of national coffee industries.
    
    

Reduce climate risk: Reducing coffee-related deforestation can contribute to climate change mitigation by protecting critical carbon sinks and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, safeguarding the future of coffee production.

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About JDE Peet's

JDE Peet's - now part of Keurig Dr Pepper - is the world's leading pure-play coffee company, with a presence in more than 100 markets. Guided by our 'Reignite the Amazing' strategy, we are focused on brand-led growth across three big bets: Peet's, L'OR, and our 10 strategically selected local icons led by Jacobs. In 2025, JDE Peet's generated total sales of EUR 9.9 billion and employed a global workforce of more than 21,000 employees. Discover more about our journey to deliver a coffee for every cup and a brand for every heart at www.jdepeets.com.

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