Meet David Browning: 2022 Sustainability Award Winner, Individual Category

David has worked to support smallholder farmers and their families in the developing world for the past 19 years. His efforts have helped over a million people enjoy the benefits of higher incomes, greater education, improved access to health care or cleaner water.

Since 2004, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has been proud to recognize outstanding work in the field of sustainability with its annual Sustainability Awards, giving thanks to extraordinary individuals, businesses, and organizations that have created projects or business models shown to expand and promote sustainability within the coffee world. The Individual category award celebrates individuals who have significantly contributed to advancing sustainability in the coffee industry, for example by raising awareness of key issues or developing a project or business model that generates positive social and environmental impacts.

For 2022, the Sustainability Award Individual Category winner is David Browning.

David’s teams’ work has been recognized by global leaders including multinational CEOs, philanthropists, Silicon Valley investors, the media, the White House, and renowned academics. The innovations his teams have created and/or scaled have included international development practices, environmental processing, waste-water management, public-private financing innovations, and most recently the use of artificial intelligence to reengineer sustainability verification and global deforestation detection.

The impact of David’s work can be traced to taking a strong analytical rather than ideological lens to problems, letting facts and hypotheses drive towards solutions, and creating an environment where teams across many disciplines can innovate and achieve what was not previously possible.

Most recently at Enveritas, David’s team are developing new solutions to help address the social and environmental challenges that will face the coffee industry over the next decade including deforestation, child labor, higher incomes for farming families and more.

SCA Knowledge Development Manager, Julie Housh, asked David a series of questions about this achievement, and the future of sustainability in coffee.

Here’s what he said:

What does it mean to you to win this award?

SCA’s recognition is an incredible honor, but this is not my award. My colleagues over the years have worked tirelessly to create the impact that has been achieved... it has always been a team effort. And even more so, coffee communities around the world have undertaken the actions that have created change for their own families, farms and communities. This award is in honor of their efforts.

How is sustainability different in 2022 than it was when you began working in the coffee industry?

When I began working in the coffee industry in the early 2000’s, the New York C had fallen below 50 cents/pound and there was tremendous energy and discussion being devoted to sustainability solutions, but the forces were not yet in place to create a tipping point. Fast forward to today, and a remarkable change is underway in the coffee industry. Investors, regulators, staff, and customers are increasingly focused on sustainability issues. This momentum has given coffee companies far greater license to build sustainability into their way of doing business than was possible twenty years ago. This change may be hard to see at a distance, and a cynical observer could be mistaken for seeing sound bytes not substance, but these forces are massive and in turn, create the potential for solutions at scale. Twenty years ago I was being asked “if we want to build a classroom in this coffee origin, where should we build it?” Now I’m asked “What would it take to increase incomes for all smallholder coffee farms in this origin, what is the most effective way for our entire global supply chain to become carbon neutral, how can we protect rainforest reserves from deforestation in all coffee origins”. There is a tremendous alchemy between smaller more nimble coffee companies that can push the envelope, innovate faster, more boldly, and larger coffee companies that can drive solutions at scale. It’s a powerful industry combination.

How do you hope to see the coffee industry continue to evolve in pursuit of sustainability?

I believe the coffee industry can become a remarkable beacon for the world. An example of how communities, the private sector, civil society and policy can each play their mutually-supporting roles to create environmental and social change. This does not mean denying market forces, but rather finding new and creative ways to reward shareholders, delight customers, protect our planet, and help coffee communities thrive. For me, that is the light on the hill. I believe a decade from now, other industries will betaking the coffee industry’s sustainability blueprint and applying it in replica. Could this opportunity be missed, yes it could...throughout the industry, in every corner, authentic champions are needed to make this happen, and I believe they will step forward.

Discover more by tuning into David’s 2019 Re:Co Talk: Using Technology to Help Smallholder Farmers. David will be delivering a lecture, Saturday, April 9, 2022 at Specialty Coffee Expo “A New Approach to Detecting Deforestation”. Register to attend here.

David is the CEO of Enveritas.

About The Sustainability Awards

The selection process for the 2022 Sustainability Awards was led by a committee of staff and volunteers, including  previous SCA Sustainability Award winners. Learn more about the Sustainability Awards, including this year’s Project Category and Business Model Category award winners, as well as previous winners here.