A Celebration of 130 years
On 7 October 2025 the Lavazza Coffee Company and the Fondazione Lavazza, hosted the second edition of “The Coffeeprint of Tomorrow – Cultivating Coffee Value” in Turin, Italy, to mark Lavazza’s 130th anniversary.
The gathering brought together governments, development agencies, private sector, and academic institutions—all united by a shared vision to reshape the global coffee value chain through climate-smart, livelihood-positive and deforestation-free solutions. Building on the UN-REDD Programme’s support to policy solutions and business partnerships for deforestation-free production, UNDP facilitated the participation of delegations from four countries: Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, and Viet Nam. This enabled them to expand partnerships with the government of Italy and Turin-based companies like Lavazza, and to build South-South networks on sustainable coffee.
The anniversary celebration highlighted the UNDP-Lavazza partnership as a pioneer effort to advance policy-based deforestation-free and traceable coffee value chains, resulting in Ecuador’s export of the first-ever nationally certified deforestation-free certified coffee to the market. The meeting served to expand the partnership and its lessons to more countries. Senior officials from the Government of Italy, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, together with carbon market specialists and key authorities from the coffee sector participated in the event. Their engagement offered a unique opportunity to deepen cooperation with Italy on the coffee sector and discuss opportunities, trends, and challenges in carbon markets.
During the event, Mr. Giuseppe Lavazza (CEO Lavazza) applauded the UNDP-Lavazza partnership, which has been recognised as a finalist for the World Economic Forum's GAEA awards, for its deforestation-free trade solution developed in Ecuador, now recognized as a model for global policy and sustainable approaches to commodity trade - boosting the momentum for other zero-deforestation coffee sector initiatives. The interventions also highlighted the power of partnerships between development organizations, coffee producing countries, and private companies to address climate change through sustainable coffee production.
South-South Exchange
In addition, UNDP facilitated a dynamic country-led South–South exchange on 8 October, where Ethiopia, Viet Nam, and Cuba shared innovative approaches to integrate the coffee and agriculture sector with the climate agenda – using the coffee value chains as a vital entry point to meet global sustainability goals:
- Ethiopia emphasized their vision to double coffee production in the country, a target set out by the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority, prioritizing rejuvenation of aging coffee plants, improving productivity through farmer training and replanting programs, ensuring compliance with EUDR, and building the capacity of farmers and government agencies to secure their export markets. Ethiopia recognized the contribution of the GEF-funded FOLUR project in substantially to rejuvenating coffee plants and improving local livelihoods and their interest in integrating green credit, REDD+ finance, and traceability tools into national systems.
- Viet Nam showcased its roadmap to develop deforestation-free coffee landscapes and remove land-based carbon emissions. Discussions focused on blended finance mechanisms to support jurisdictional coffee-carbon initiatives and on meeting EUDR requirements through SDG-based traceability systems. Viet Nam also reaffirmed its ambition to lead global nature-based coffee solutions.
- Cuba presented plans to expand sustainable coffee cultivation by 5,000 hectares within forested and mountainous landscapes. The country requested UNDP’s assistance in designing integrated financial packages combining GEF, REDD+, and concessional green credit instruments. Lavazza expressed interest in exploring future collaboration.
Global Collaboration
This encounter in Italy culminated with the signing of a renewed global Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between UNDP and Lavazza, thus expanding this global umbrella partnership to support coffee-producing countries across Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
As countries advance tailored workplans and partnerships, this global MoU provides a strong foundation for a new era for sustainable coffee—where climate resilience, sustainable trade and global cooperation brew together for a better future.
